For that reason, I am taking advantage of Varmus' challenge and departing from my usual editorializing about a topic in health policy. Instead, I want to make a plea for better writing at the submission stage of manuscripts. In the nearly four intervening years, I have come to suspect that an increasing proportion of submitted manuscripts has not been vetted by colleagues and friends. It seems as if authors are trying to short-cut the process of publishing a paper by submitting an early draft and then using the reviewer's and editor's comments to revise the paper. This approach may work occasionally, but it does not work as a general rule.
Early drafts have too bad effects.
First, contrary to expectation, early drafts lengthen the time to publication. If the reviewer takes a paper seriously, he or she will spend a great deal of time providing detailed comments about what needs to be improved. Second, the poor writing quality heightens cynicism about the whole publication enterprise. When a good referee has a bad experience, he or she typically will avoid reviewing other manuscripts for some time. This is a big loss for all of us.