This is related to the general question of "How do I referee a paper?". I am reviewing a paper for a conference, and this paper should be rejected, because it is not significant enough for publication and has flaws in some of its technical details. The paper is not wrong, but the ways in which it is right are not very interesting. How do I write a negative review in such a settings? More importantly, how do I do this as a non-senior researcher?
As an example, they make part of their argument through numerics, but I can prove the same result analytically. The analytic treatment is longer than what I can include in a review. I know the author's emails (the review process is not blind both ways), should I email them? This is a conference, so there is no time for revisions, will they be mad at me for rejecting their paper? Should I email them before or after they receive the reviews?
The paper is also sparsely cited, and does not connect strongly to existing literature. I am familiar with many aspects of the relevant literature, how detailed should I make my recommendations on further reading/references?
To extract the general questions:
- How does a junior researcher write a negative review?
- What should you do if you have specific technical comments/improvements that are too long for a standard review?