Despite her usual policy of abstaining from heated political interactions on social media, Messner continued the conversation, refusing to be intimidated.

“I’m a writer. Recommending books is probably what I do most in my social media life. Those who follow me are accustomed to that,” Messner tells School Library Journal . “This book connects with what’s going on in the news today. I didn’t think anything of it.”

She explains, “I was at first perplexed about how someone from outside of my Twitter feed, who does not even follow me, could have found my tweet.  And when I looked at the person’s feed and profile, I realized that he or she had to be someone that has set up a search for Islam, and made it their mission to seek out anyone that had something positive to say about the religion.”

The Twitter battle of words was witnessed by many of the author’s supporters and friends, including educators and librarians. A few of them added the title to their future purchase lists, or brought awareness of the book to their own audiences.

Educator and writer Michelle Cusolito, who teaches at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA,  was spurred on to suggest Golden Domes to her local bookstore, Eight Cousins in Falmouth, MA, and to create a Pinterest page for World Religion resources, with Khan’s title its first entry. “What most upset me about the situation was that all Kate wanted to do was promote openness and diversity, and this person was trying to stop that and intimidate her,” Cusolito tells SLJ. “My immediate response is, ‘I have to buy it.’ The second it hit my table, both my kids read it.”

Lauren Strohecker, a school media specialist at McKinley Elementary outside of Philadelphia, PA, tells SLJ that she sympathizes with Messner’s situation, and was disappointed that what Messner meant to be an act of sharing incurred such blowback. “It’s really hard to find books on religion appropriate for younger age groups in a K-6 school library,” Strohecker says. “But it’s important to have these titles available. Kids should have the opportunity to expand their worldview at any age.”

Strohecker has already added Golden Domes to her purchase list for the next school year because of its broad appeal, and plans on using it in a unit about colors. “It’s a book that I can integrate on subjects other than religion,” she explains.

The discussion took place over the course of a few days, with both sides coming to a standstill. Messner says she was shocked at the other party’s continuous harassment and religion bashing, but ultimately chose not to block the person, “Because that conversation—the fact that it happened—opened a lot of people’s eyes to the need for more conversations. Sharing books is powerful, and I think responding to hate with poetry and education is just about the best we can do in this world.”

Strohecker agrees. “We have the choices every day. How do we respond to hate? More hate? Or hope and stories and education? That’s a better route. And if we have that conversation with kids now, we’ll be less likely to see reactions like this one in the future.”

For a list of resources that can be used by parents, classroom teachers, and librarians, see also: Islam in the Classroom

As part the library’s efforts to raise awareness about poetry leading up to National Poetry Month in April, NYPL is encouraging aspiring poets to “follow @NYPL on Twitter, and submit three poetic Tweets in English as public posts on your Twitter stream between March 1 and 10, 2013.” Each set of three poems will constitute a single entry. To qualify, all three must contain the @NYPL Twitter handle, and at least one of the tweets must reference libraries, books, reading, or New York City.

“Twitter seems like the perfect medium for this contest,” Johannes Neuer, NYPL Associate Director of Marketing, told LJ. “It has a wide reach and requires a lot of discipline and creativity because it’s restrictive [in terms of character count], which makes writing for it challenging.”

Neuer said that the contest was partly inspired by the Twitter Fiction Festival—a five-day, experimental virtual storytelling event organized last fall by Twitter, NYPL Labs, The Brown Institute for Media Innovation, and the Plympton literary studio devoted to ‘”serialized fiction for digital reading.”

“It was inspiring to see how well this microblogging platform is suited for writers, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing the poems that are published,” he said.

Ten winners will be selected by a panel of judges, based on originality, creativity, and artistic quality. Each winner will receive a set of poetry books including Red Doc> by Anne Carson, Quick Question: New Poems by John Ashbery, Place: New Poems by Jorie Graham, The Narrow Road to the Interior by Kimiko Hahn, and The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010 by Lucille Clifton.

Their work will also receive significant exposure. Each day during National Poetry Month in April, NYPL will highlight one of the 30 winning poems in its social media channels, reaching more than one million of the library’s fans and followers. And, winners could potentially be selected for inclusion in an upcoming special edition NYPL poetry ebook.

Writers and poets interested in participating must first register, so that NYPL has their twitter handle and contact information available. Requiring participants to include the @NYPL handle in each submission will enable NYPL’s Meltwater Buzz social media monitoring software to capture entries and match them to this list of registrants. The panel of judges will then review all of the collected entries and select winners by March 18. Participants can submit one three-poem entry per day, and all poems must be original, unpublished, and must not have won any prior awards.

“We’re looking forward to reaching a lot of people with these poems, and inspiring them to engage with poetry—and maybe write poetry themselves—through retweets, commentary, likes, +1s, and blogs. And, of course, hopefully we’ll inspire some people to follow the New York Public Library year-round on our social media channels,” Neuer said.

Plush gorilla Ivan visits his book at the Indianapolis Public Library. Photo credit: John Schumacher.

“You know what’s interesting? I’m sort of a Luddite about technology, but I embraced Twitter this year,” Applegate tells SLJ, noting that immediately after the YMA announcements, she viewed “a scary amount of tweets” discussing her win.

It’s this interactive community of online librarian fans, both independent bloggers and Tweeters, that helped boost Ivan’s visibility, she says. “It’s helped tremendously.”

Leading the charge for The One and Only Ivan has been the Nerdy Book Club as well as popular book blogger and K–5 librarian John Schumacher, who has “a huge online presence,” Applegate says.

Once Applegate’s Newbery win was announced, “My students clapped and clapped and clapped. Incredible,” Schumacher tells SLJ. “Ivan will never be forgotten.”

Applegate says she was honored when she learned that Schumacher chose Ivan as the inspiration for his book-character-on-vacation trip in 2012, an annual event that he blogs about for the kids back home. “Every year he takes a plush character from a kid’s book around on adventures, and this year he selected Ivan!” Applegate says. “He took him to meet the actual Ivan at Zoo Atlanta. John was able to go in with a couple of friends and have Ivan sign his book with a green thumbprint. Isn’t that cool?”

(“You have no idea how hard it is to find a T-shirt for a stuffed gorilla,” Applegate adds.)

Looking ahead, Applegate says she hopes her Newbery recognition means even more children will now learn the story about the real silverback gorilla named Ivan. “It’s a chance to really connect with kids and that’s really wonderful. I’m really gratified,” she tells SLJ. “I wish I had been in Seattle. But it makes me very happy that this story could make it into the world in some way.”

Meanwhile, relative newcomer to kid lit Jon Klassen says he was surprised to learn, just in the past few years since the publication of his picture book I Want My Hat Back (Candlewick, 2011), how determined librarians are in their efforts to get a book out to readers. “It’s a big deal,” he tells SLJ.

So far, the illustrator, who began his career in animation, has been relying on children’s book collaborator Mac Barnett—who was also named, along with Klassen, winner of a Caldecott Honor this week for Extra Yarn (HarperCollins)—to help guide him through this “crazy” new world, he says.

“Librarians are very important!” Klassen adds. “It’s not a marketplace angle; librarians are looking for what’s best for kids, so they have different criteria. The opinions that they give out are really thought through. They’re very passionate.” Author events have been eye-opening in this regard, he tells SLJ. “(Librarians) are very organized and they’re quick and super sharp—and smarter than you.”

And as it turns out, the experience of being an author is much more expansive—and involves much more community-building in these areas—than he originally expected.

“I like making the books, but if you get lucky with one, you end up talking about it more than you thought you would,” he tells SLJ. “There’s a cycle that I’m slowly learning about.” However, Klassen says, “Being busy following these books around? That’s the best problem to have in the world.”

Culled from the responses of 694 randomly selected educators, including librarians, teachers, and principals, the study compares findings with those from a similar survey conducted in 2009.

According to the report, “2012 Survey of K-12 educators on Social Networking, Online Communities, and Web 2.0 Tools,” 82 percent of all K-12 educators now use social networking for personal and professional use, up from 61 percent in 2009.

The study provides information about educators’ favorite sites by category and reveals social networking patterns by age and frequency of use. It also reveals educators’ concerns about privacy and provides information about school district technology access policies for students and teachers.

Facebook, Edmodo, and the Discovery Education Network most popular in their categories

Facebook is the most used social networking venue among respondents, with 85 percent using the site, the same percentage as in 2009.

LinkedIn is the second most popular, accessed by 41 percent of respondents, up from 14 percent in 2009. Twitter is third, at 39 percent, followed by Google+ (27percent), Ning (11percent), and MySpace (20 percent).

Younger educators network the most, with 97 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds networking online, as opposed to 75 percent of respondents who are 55-plus, according to the report.

Among education-focused sites, Edmodo has the most members, accessed by 27 percent of respondents, followed by edWeb.net (15 percent), ASCD EDge (9 percent), Classroom 2.0 (9 percent), We are Teachers (6 percent), Teacher 2.0 (5 percent), NSTA Learning Center (4 percent), and Educators PLN (3 percent).

Librarians use the first four of these education-focused sites more than teachers or principals, according to the study. Looking forward, 31 percent of librarians say that they will likely join a new networking and PD site in the next year, as opposed to 22 percent of teachers and 31 percent of principals.

For librarians, the top five branded online communities are the Discovery Education Network (49 percent), Edutopia (31 percent), PBS Teachers (30 percent), Thinkfinity (25 percent), and BrainPOP Educators  (24 percent).

Webinars are the most popular networking tool among educators, while document sharing is the most used in classrooms.

Concern over privacy and restrictive school policies

Forty five percent of respondents express concern about privacy on education sites, while 26 percent worry about inappropriate relationships with students. Twenty six percent are concerned that affiliation with a social network “might head to an incident that would jeopardize my job,” according to the report. Among those surveyed, 80 percent keep their personal and professional accounts separate most of the time.

Twenty-three percent believe that their school or district’s policy on Web 2.0 tools is restrictive to teachers, and 47 percent think their schools’ regulations are a hindrance to students.

Fifty four percent of respondents work in districts that allow kids to bring their own devices to school, but only five percent of those schools allow students to use them with no restrictions. 64 percent of educators think it likely that their districts will “open up policies on BYOD in the future.”

“There is growing awareness that online communities help teachers create an extended personal learning network and access a wealth of professional development resources—often at no cost to the teacher,” a press release connected to the report states.

The press release adds that the U. S. Department of Education has encouraged educators to access online resources by declaring August 2012 “Connected Educator Month,” along with initiatives including the 2010 National Education Technology Plan and the Connected Online Communities of Practice Project (COCP).

The most famous living author of horror fiction strolled into the library unannounced on October 19, following a year-long campaign by students to convince King to visit their school by Halloween of this year.

Students had written 1,100 letters to King, sent by mail and posted here. They also sent King-themed artwork to the author, displayed on a project site; shot films and YouTube musical parodies, including a rap composition; and, with teacher Sarah-Jane Smith, chronicled events on Twitter at @StephenKingSRHS. A Stephen King book drive added 120 of the author’s books to the school library.

“I came because of all those letters,” King told the small group of students, who had been informed that they had been assembled to meet with a representative from their school district. “I was just blissed out to get them all.”

“You are so not from the school district,” one of the students told King, prompting laughter.

Dressed in a grey T-shirt tucked into jeans, King, a former teacher, went on to speak with the students about his evolution as a writer, his working habits, and how to improve their own writing.

“I’m just like you,” he told the group. “I came from a small town across the border in Maine. I went to a one-room school. I went to a high school that was smaller than this. I started to write stories because I liked it. That was the only reason.”

He added that his grades weren’t so great, except in English.

“How many of you like to write?” He asked them. “You don’t have to raise your hand.”

But most of the hands went up. King then took a black marker and wrote a sentence, composed by one of the students, on an easel. Conducting an informal workshop, he asked the kids for suggestions on how to improve the sentence and handed the marker to a volunteer.

Later, King moved into the school auditorium and chatted informally with a larger group.

“Writing is about seeing and saying,” he said. “You see something, you say it, and you try to say it in a way that’s new. But you also write it in a way that will make people want to read it.”

”Write with the door closed. It’s not anybody’s business but yours,” he advised. “Then, if you like what you’ve done, you’ve got to open up the door, look at it, and say, ‘Can I improve this?’”

Before his first story was accepted for publication—“a publisher paid 35 bucks for it”—King used to display rejection letters on a nail on his wall. After 60 or 70 rejections, the nail fell down, he said.

He offered this encouragement to determined young writers: “There’s always going to be room at the bottom, because people like me are going to croak.”

About his own writing process, King said, “I write from 8 in the morning until noon every day. And when that time is going by for me, I’m not in the world. I’m inside whatever the story is. It’s a little bit like being crazy, only they pay you for it, so that’s really good.” And after all these years, “For me, it’s still fun.”

And what was the most frightening thing that ever happened to him? “I got hit by a car,” he told them, an experience he detailed in his book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (Scribner, 2000).

Smith told SLJ that she and SRHS students, overwhelmed by interview requests, were no longer speaking to the media. A 31-minute video of King’s visit is available here and a 5-minute highlight reel is here.

Space are meaningless without meaningful connections with adults and peers in libraries. #engchat

October 22, 2012 7:55 pm via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@meenoorami

Meenoo Rami

Moran, Superintendent of the Albemarle County Public Schools in Charlottesville, VA, and Socol, a special education technology scholar at Michigan State University’s College of Education in East Lansing, emphasized that it’s crucial to the survival of librarians that they keep up with today’s technology driven world.

But how imperative are ebooks? Many tweeters cautioned against wholeheartedly embracing this technology. Middle school librarian Deven Black (@devenkblack) reminded participants that access to ebooks in poorer schools is limited. Jenn Cook (@cookout70), an associate Professor of English and Education at Rhode Island College, warned that abandoning physical books may make libraries less inclusive: “Just like when millionaires talk about poverty, when we assume that ‘change’ means going digital/virtual, we leave many behind.”

Similarly, Buffy Hamilton (@buffyjhamilton), a high school teacher in Canton, GA, and blogger at The Unquiet Library, urged restraint among librarians who view electronic materials as “a one size fits all solution.” Though ebook distributors like OverDrive may seem to hold all the answers, she noted, not all libraries can afford them, and their content may not be essential or interesting to students.

Participants agreed that librarians must maintain traditional skills—such as readers’ advisory—but also be savvy to new trends in order to stay relevant. Becky Fisher (@BeckyFisher73), an educator in Charlottesville, VA, tweeted that “Contemporary librarians have to understand contemporary means of accessing and making information!” and encouraged them not to fear sites like Wikipedia. Going back to basics, librarian Kathy Kaldenberg (@scsdmedia) stressed the importance of encouraging a love of literature: “Hands down. The most effective thing we do at our library is read the books and give personal recommendations.”

Librarians aired frustration that administrators on tight budgets do not always accept evidence showing that libraries improve student learning. Julie Goldberg (@juliegoldberg), a librarian in Rockland County, cited a three-year study conducted by the Center for International Scholarship in School Libraries (CISSL) at Rutgers University showing that school libraries have a positive effect on student achievement  but lamented that “many decision-makers are unaware.” Hamilton tweeted, “many librarians are attempting to lead change but meet tremendous resistance from admin and faculty.”

Participants agreed that libraries should be warm and innovative environments, but opinions differed over whether they should also maintain quiet spaces. Shannon DeSantis (@shdesant), a library science graduate student at Syracuse University, tweeted that “the days of the shush library should be over. We want our space to be collaborative and welcoming!” On the other hand, Fisher spoke for many participants when she described her ideal space: “We are looking at providing cozy, quiet, curl up with a book spaces as well as noisy, collaborative, make things happen ones.”

Though participants had many diverse ideas about what future libraries must look like in terms of space and technology concerns, the belief that librarians are vital to the success of a school was a constant. Meenoo Rami (@meenoorami), founder and moderator of Engchat, underscored that what students need most is committed librarians: “Space are meaningless without meaningful connections with adults and peers in libraries.” Participants who want to continue the conversation can use the Twitter hashtag #sljsummit to follow Socol and Moran’s thoughts about the evolution of libraries at the Leadership Summit.

while i still am team dewey, i embrace almost every other thing about metis. this in nutshell is my eternal problem, wanting both #sljdewey

October 11, 2012 9:56 pm via TweetChatReplyRetweetFavorite

@LizB

Liz Burns

Some questioned the decision to throw out Dewey entirely instead of just adjusting it to user needs. Though Liz Burns (@LizB), a librarian at the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, who blogs at SLJ’s A Chair, a Fireplace & A Tea Cozy, remained wary of wholeheartedly embracing Metis, she appreciated the concept of “librarians using MLS skills to totally customize to community.”

Similarly, Stacy Dillon (@mytweendom), an elementary school librarian at Little Red School House, relayed how she relies upon a customized version of Dewey that uses separate sections for biographies and graphic novels. Nevertheless, Kaplan argued that Dewey is too flawed, stating that simply tweaking it would be, “like taking a size 6 dress and cutting it down. Better to start with a new pattern.”

Participants responded to criticisms that abandoning Dewey means oversimplifying the library experience. Melissa Techman (@mtechman), a K-5 school librarian in Charlottesville, VA, tweeted that it is “not dumbing down to consider usability.” She later mentioned that, for example, patrons often find it frustrating that books on mummies are not categorized next to those on Ancient Egypt.

Still-Schiff also disagreed with claims that jettisoning Dewey is anti-intellectual. Because Metis’s structure is so child-centered, she believes that it encourages more rigorous thinking. (For example, students themselves engaged in the decision-making; they made the choice to group materials on whales with those about aquatic animals rather than with those about mammals and to put books about athletes with other sports titles instead of with biographies.) Still-Schiff wrote: “Hierarchical thinking isn’t dumbing down; it is higher order work than memorizing or writing numbers.”

Several librarians praised the use of Dewey for its teachable moments. Dillon said that instructing students in how to use the traditional system “gets kids thinking about organization.” Similarly, KarinLibrarian (@KPerry) advocated teaching students better search skills and said that learning Dewey “isn’t just a library skill. Math teaches decimals too. Part of life.”

However, Giffard finds teaching a numerically based approach to young children with limited math and reading skills to be counterproductive. Kaplan raised the point that Metis is a superior tool for teaching categorization because its structure is much more logical. In reference to domestic animals being classified under the Dewey class 600 (applied sciences) rather than 500 (science and animals), she quipped, “Try telling someone that dogs belong in Technology.”

Some librarians are also considering revamping their fiction collections, by grouping books according to genre instead of by author. Techman finds that students are more likely to find new books using this system, and Tamara Cox (@coxtl) likes it because “she can SEE what shelves are empty (popular) and order more to meet demand.”

Though Dewey still has its supporters (with Burns lamenting that many librarians’ Dewey Decimal call number tattoos may soon become irrelevant), overall most were open-minded about the possibilities of evolving newer library systems. Cox (@coxtl) encouraged other librarians “to at least THINK about our sacred cows and make sure we’re serving our kids, not tradition.”

These were our top stories of the week on our Twitter feed. Dewey, no surprise, heads the list.

Are Dewey’s Days Numbered?: Libraries Nationwide Are Ditching the Old Classification System

New York approves a new school librarian evaluation rubric  NeverEndingSearch

 Movie Review: Fat Kid Rules the World 

Looking for some books to display for Halloween? Search no more! Nail-biters: Gripping Tales 

There is only one science book in the entire Newbery canon. Maybe that will change this year. Heavy Medal

Best Websites for Teaching the Presidential Election - The Digital Shift

Recommended Comics for Schools: Uncle Scrooge, Papyrus, The Loxleys/Crogan’s Loyalty, Hammer and Anvil Connect the Pop

So. Many. Books. Someday My Printz Will Come

Our October cover story has generated some deep discussion and the conversation continues on a Twitter chat:

Thursday, October 11

9 pm ET, 6 pm PT

hashtag: #sljdewey

Host: Kiera Parrott, Head of Children’s Services, Darien (CT) Library

Participants: Sue Giffard, Tali Balas Kaplan and Jennifer Still-Schiff, all of the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York City and co-authors of the feature story

Held at the at the New York Public Library, the speakers on the “The Changing Relationship Between Reader and Writer” panel discussed how much of their personal lives they share with readers. Moderator Karen Halpenny, vice president of Children’s Media Association, a nonprofit organization dedicated to distributing quality media to kids and young adults, brought up author John Green’s relationship to his audience as an example of the problems that can arise from a strong online presence. Although Green is famous for his enthusiastic interaction with his readers, he includes a page on his Tumblr site in which he urges fans to observe appropriate behavior when contacting him—and asks them not to come to his house or locate his address.

Adele Griffin prefers to maintain a healthy distance from her fans. She talked about her respect for Newbery-winning author and National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, Katherine Paterson, and her approach to meeting fans. While Griffin feels a strong connection with the beloved children’s book author and appreciates her books, she found Paterson much more reserved in person. Similarly, Griffin strives to establish a sense of intimacy with her readers through her written work rather than through real life encounters.

Sheinmel addressed how her fans perceive her, as well as her sense of obligation toward them. Because her upcoming novel, Stone Girl (Knopf, 2012), about a teenager coping with anorexia and bulimia, is based on personal experience, she feels a duty to handle body image issues responsibly when talking to readers. While the advanced reader copy of Stone Girl included a note detailing her own history with these disorders, Sheinmel ultimately decided to remove it, saying that she didn’t want it to affect the way fans viewed either her or her work.

Michael Northrop discussed interactions with adult fans. Because writers usually show a carefully crafted, optimal persona when communicating with fans online, he believes that some fans mistake these positive interactions for real friendship. However, he acknowledged that this response is simply part of being a writer with an online presence.

The authors also described the most effective ways of using social media to connect to fans. Gayle Forman devotes much time and energy into blogging, usually taking an entire day to compose a post. Though she finds blogging time-consuming, she prefers it to Twitter because she enjoys the opportunity to have longer, more drawn out conversations with her readers through the comments section.

While the writers feel that establishing an online identity can be challenging, they all remain committed to their fans.

For more coverage of KidLitCon 2012, please see our article on Critical Reviewing in the Age of Twitter.

Moderator Jen Hubert-Swan, a blogger at ReadingRants and middle school librarian at New York’s Little Red School House, began the conversation by bringing up a recent Slate.com article, “Against Enthusiasm: The Epidemic of Niceness in Online Book Culture, ” which took aim at online book culture for creating an atmosphere in which “retweets, likes, favorites…make any critique stick out sorely” and which has resulted in bloggers who are reluctant to negatively review novels.

Although the panelists agreed that reviewers should honestly critique novels, Betsy Bird, a youth materials specialist at New York Public Library, pointed to a few who would rather limit themselves to writing about titles they enjoyed. Bird, who blogs for SLJ at Fuse #8, says she considers them cheerleaders rather than reviewers. However, Bird cautioned against writing nasty or mean-spirited reviews.

Similarly, Liz Burns, a librarian at New Jersey’s National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped and who blogs for SLJ at A Chair, A Fireplace & a Tea Cozy, advised that a critical review should be supported by quotes or references to the text. She also stated that a reviewer can apply critical analysis to books they appreciate as well as to those they dislike.

Monica Edinger, fourth grade teacher at the Dalton School, a private school in New York, and who blogs at Educating Alice, put the conversation into historical context. She brought up past authors and literary critics, such as E.B. White and Dorothy Parker, who regularly reviewed each other’s work—and often resulted in feuds and arguments. Edinger believes that the world of social media is simply making the relationships between authors and reviewers more public.

Hubert-Swan questioned whether a blogger can have a friendship with a writer and still review their work. Freelance writer Marjorie Ingall, who also writes at her self-titled blog, doesn’t “friend” or follow any authors because her journalism background makes her more sensitive to potential conflicts of interest.

On the other hand, Burns distinguished between knowing an author personally and following them on Twitter, stressing that a relationship based only on social media wouldn’t affect reviews. Above all, she emphasized the importance of transparency and stated that if she’s reviewing a book written by a friend, she always discloses their relationship in the blog-post.

Bird said she often receives responses from authors or editors who take issue with her negative reviews of their work. Similarly, Hubert-Swan talked about her experience writing critical commentary of books on Goodreads. She said she removes her negative comments if contacted by authors because she would rather not start a debate in a public forum.

The panelists concluded that many authors dealing with Internet commentary need more guidance from publishers. Sheila Barry, blogger at Making Books for Children and co-publisher of Groundwood, said that as an editor, she’s often had to reassure authors who were unhappy at receiving negative reviews. As both a blogger and a young adult author, Maureen Johnson finds herself in a unique position. She drew upon her personal experience, stating that confronting the world of online reviews is incredibly daunting for a first-time author. However, she emphasized that authors must refrain from replying to negative responses to their work to ensure that reviewers feel comfortable voicing their opinions.