scientific paper peer review

When you choose to publish with PLOS, your research makes an impact. Make your work accessible to all, without restrictions, and accelerate scientific discovery with options like preprints and published peer review that make your work more Open.

• PLOS Biology
• PLOS Climate
• PLOS Complex Systems
• PLOS Computational Biology
• PLOS Digital Health
• PLOS Genetics
• PLOS Global Public Health
• PLOS Medicine
• PLOS Mental Health
• PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
• PLOS Pathogens
• PLOS Sustainability and Transformation
• PLOS Collections

How to Write a Peer Review

When you write a peer review for a manuscript, what should you include in your comments? What should you leave out? And how should the review be formatted?

This guide provides quick tips for writing and organizing your reviewer report.

Review Outline

Use an outline for your reviewer report so it’s easy for the editors and author to follow. This will also help you keep your comments organized.

Think about structuring your review like an inverted pyramid. Put the most important information at the top, followed by details and examples in the center, and any additional points at the very bottom.

Here’s how your outline might look:

1. Summary of the research and your overall impression

In your own words, summarize what the manuscript claims to report. This shows the editor how you interpreted the manuscript and will highlight any major differences in perspective between you and the other reviewers. Give an overview of the manuscript’s strengths and weaknesses. Think about this as your “take-home” message for the editors. End this section with your recommended course of action.

2. Discussion of specific areas for improvement

It’s helpful to divide this section into two parts: one for major issues and one for minor issues. Within each section, you can talk about the biggest issues first or go systematically figure-by-figure or claim-by-claim. Number each item so that your points are easy to follow (this will also make it easier for the authors to respond to each point). Refer to specific lines, pages, sections, or figure and table numbers so the authors (and editors) know exactly what you’re talking about.

Major vs. minor issues

What’s the difference between a major and minor issue? Major issues should consist of the essential points the authors need to address before the manuscript can proceed. Make sure you focus on what is  fundamental for the current study . In other words, it’s not helpful to recommend additional work that would be considered the “next step” in the study. Minor issues are still important but typically will not affect the overall conclusions of the manuscript. Here are some examples of what would might go in the “minor” category:

• Missing references (but depending on what is missing, this could also be a major issue)
• Technical clarifications (e.g., the authors should clarify how a reagent works)
• Data presentation (e.g., the authors should present p-values differently)
• Typos, spelling, grammar, and phrasing issues

3. Any other points

Confidential comments for the editors.

Some journals have a space for reviewers to enter confidential comments about the manuscript. Use this space to mention concerns about the submission that you’d want the editors to consider before sharing your feedback with the authors, such as concerns about ethical guidelines or language quality. Any serious issues should be raised directly and immediately with the journal as well.

This section is also where you will disclose any potentially competing interests, and mention whether you’re willing to look at a revised version of the manuscript.

Do not use this space to critique the manuscript, since comments entered here will not be passed along to the authors.  If you’re not sure what should go in the confidential comments, read the reviewer instructions or check with the journal first before submitting your review. If you are reviewing for a journal that does not offer a space for confidential comments, consider writing to the editorial office directly with your concerns.

Get this outline in a template

Giving Feedback

Giving feedback is hard. Giving effective feedback can be even more challenging. Remember that your ultimate goal is to discuss what the authors would need to do in order to qualify for publication. The point is not to nitpick every piece of the manuscript. Your focus should be on providing constructive and critical feedback that the authors can use to improve their study.

If you’ve ever had your own work reviewed, you already know that it’s not always easy to receive feedback. Follow the golden rule: Write the type of review you’d want to receive if you were the author. Even if you decide not to identify yourself in the review, you should write comments that you would be comfortable signing your name to.

In your comments, use phrases like “ the authors’ discussion of X” instead of “ your discussion of X .” This will depersonalize the feedback and keep the focus on the manuscript instead of the authors.

General guidelines for effective feedback

• Justify your recommendation with concrete evidence and specific examples.
• Be specific so the authors know what they need to do to improve.
• Be thorough. This might be the only time you read the manuscript.
• Be professional and respectful. The authors will be reading these comments too.
• Remember to say what you liked about the manuscript!

Don’t

• Recommend additional experiments or  unnecessary elements that are out of scope for the study or for the journal criteria.
• Tell the authors exactly how to revise their manuscript—you don’t need to do their work for them.
• Use the review to promote your own research or hypotheses.
• Focus on typos and grammar. If the manuscript needs significant editing for language and writing quality, just mention this in your comments.
• Submit your review without proofreading it and checking everything one more time.

Before and After: Sample Reviewer Comments

Keeping in mind the guidelines above, how do you put your thoughts into words? Here are some sample “before” and “after” reviewer comments

✗ Before

“The authors appear to have no idea what they are talking about. I don’t think they have read any of the literature on this topic.”

✓ After

“The study fails to address how the findings relate to previous research in this area. The authors should rewrite their Introduction and Discussion to reference the related literature, especially recently published work such as Darwin et al.”

“The writing is so bad, it is practically unreadable. I could barely bring myself to finish it.”

“While the study appears to be sound, the language is unclear, making it difficult to follow. I advise the authors work with a writing coach or copyeditor to improve the flow and readability of the text.”

“It’s obvious that this type of experiment should have been included. I have no idea why the authors didn’t use it. This is a big mistake.”

“The authors are off to a good start, however, this study requires additional experiments, particularly [type of experiment]. Alternatively, the authors should include more information that clarifies and justifies their choice of methods.”

Suggested Language for Tricky Situations

You might find yourself in a situation where you’re not sure how to explain the problem or provide feedback in a constructive and respectful way. Here is some suggested language for common issues you might experience.

What you think : The manuscript is fatally flawed. What you could say: “The study does not appear to be sound” or “the authors have missed something crucial”.

What you think : You don’t completely understand the manuscript. What you could say : “The authors should clarify the following sections to avoid confusion…”

What you think : The technical details don’t make sense. What you could say : “The technical details should be expanded and clarified to ensure that readers understand exactly what the researchers studied.”

What you think: The writing is terrible. What you could say : “The authors should revise the language to improve readability.”

What you think : The authors have over-interpreted the findings. What you could say : “The authors aim to demonstrate [XYZ], however, the data does not fully support this conclusion. Specifically…”

What does a good review look like?

Check out the peer review examples at F1000 Research to see how other reviewers write up their reports and give constructive feedback to authors.

Time to Submit the Review!

Be sure you turn in your report on time. Need an extension? Tell the journal so that they know what to expect. If you need a lot of extra time, the journal might need to contact other reviewers or notify the author about the delay.

Tip: Building a relationship with an editor

You’ll be more likely to be asked to review again if you provide high-quality feedback and if you turn in the review on time. Especially if it’s your first review for a journal, it’s important to show that you are reliable. Prove yourself once and you’ll get asked to review again!

• Getting started as a reviewer
• Responding to an invitation
• Reading a manuscript
• Writing a peer review

The contents of the Peer Review Center are also available as a live, interactive training session, complete with slides, talking points, and activities. …

The contents of the Writing Center are also available as a live, interactive training session, complete with slides, talking points, and activities. …

There’s a lot to consider when deciding where to submit your work. Learn how to choose a journal that will help your study reach its audience, while reflecting your values as a researcher…

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts
• CAREER COLUMN
• 08 October 2018

How to write a thorough peer review

• Mathew Stiller-Reeve 0

Mathew Stiller-Reeve is a climate researcher at NORCE/Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research in Bergen, Norway, the leader of SciSnack.com, and a thematic editor at Geoscience Communication .

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Scientists do not receive enough peer-review training. To improve this situation, a small group of editors and I developed a peer-review workflow to guide reviewers in delivering useful and thorough analyses that can really help authors to improve their papers.

Access options

Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals

Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription

24,99 € / 30 days

cancel any time

Subscribe to this journal

Receive 51 print issues and online access

185,98 € per year

only 3,65 € per issue

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-06991-0

This is an article from the Nature Careers Community, a place for Nature readers to share their professional experiences and advice. Guest posts are encouraged. You can get in touch with the editor at [email protected].

Related Articles

Engage more early-career scientists as peer reviewers

Help graduate students to become good peer reviewers

• Peer review

What reproducibility crisis? New research protocol yields ultra-high replication rate

News 09 NOV 23

ChatGPT use shows that the grant-application system is broken

Career Column 13 OCT 23

Reproducibility trial: 246 biologists get different results from same data sets

News 12 OCT 23

Authors reply to questionable publicity

Correspondence 14 NOV 23

Who should pay for open-access publishing? APC alternatives emerge

News Feature 14 NOV 23

AI writes summaries of preprints in bioRxiv trial

News 14 NOV 23

As an artist-scientist, ‘I’m obsessed with pigments’

Career Q&A 16 NOV 23

One-third of Indian STEM conferences have no women

News 15 NOV 23

Why postdoctoral training needs a stronger focus on innovation

Career Column 14 NOV 23

NIHR GOSH BRC 3-year Clinical Training (PhD) Fellowship

Clinical PhD Fellowship for paediatric doctors and wider Healthcare Professionals at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health

London (Greater) (GB)

NIHR GOSH BRC

Job Posting of the School of Optical and Electronic Information, HUST

Job Opportunities: Leading talents, young talents, overseas outstanding young scholars, postdoctoral researchers.

Wuhan, Hubei, China

School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology

Artificial Intelligence and Data Science Faculty Positions in the SOE at the Westlake University

We are dedicated to achieving influential innovations in theories and applications of these research fields.

Yungu, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

Westlake University

Faculty Positions in School of Engineering, Westlake University

Tenured or tenure-track faculty positions in all ranks. We seek candidates with research interests in multiple areas.

School of Engineering, Westlake University

2023 Recruitment notice Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology: Shenzhen, China

The wide-ranging expertise drawing from technical, engineering or science professions...

Shenzhen,China

Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

Disclaimer » Advertising

• HealthyChildren.org

• Previous Article
• Next Article

What is the Purpose of Peer Review?

What makes a good peer reviewer, how do you decide whether to review a paper, how do you complete a peer review, limitations of peer review, conclusions, research methods: how to perform an effective peer review.

• Split-Screen
• Article contents
• Figures & tables
• Supplementary Data
• Peer Review
• CME Quiz Close Quiz
• Open the PDF for in another window
• Get Permissions
• Cite Icon Cite
• Search Site

Elise Peterson Lu , Brett G. Fischer , Melissa A. Plesac , Andrew P.J. Olson; Research Methods: How to Perform an Effective Peer Review. Hosp Pediatr November 2022; 12 (11): e409–e413. https://doi.org/10.1542/hpeds.2022-006764

Download citation file:

• Ris (Zotero)
• Reference Manager

Scientific peer review has existed for centuries and is a cornerstone of the scientific publication process. Because the number of scientific publications has rapidly increased over the past decades, so has the number of peer reviews and peer reviewers. In this paper, drawing on the relevant medical literature and our collective experience as peer reviewers, we provide a user guide to the peer review process, including discussion of the purpose and limitations of peer review, the qualities of a good peer reviewer, and a step-by-step process of how to conduct an effective peer review.

Peer review has been a part of scientific publications since 1665, when the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society became the first publication to formalize a system of expert review. 1 , 2   It became an institutionalized part of science in the latter half of the 20 th century and is now the standard in scientific research publications. 3   In 2012, there were more than 28 000 scholarly peer-reviewed journals and more than 3 million peer reviewed articles are now published annually. 3 , 4   However, even with this volume, most peer reviewers learn to review “on the (unpaid) job” and no standard training system exists to ensure quality and consistency. 5   Expectations and format vary between journals and most, but not all, provide basic instructions for reviewers. In this paper, we provide a general introduction to the peer review process and identify common strategies for success as well as pitfalls to avoid.

Modern peer review serves 2 primary purposes: (1) as “a screen before the diffusion of new knowledge” 6   and (2) as a method to improve the quality of published work. 1 , 5  

As screeners, peer reviewers evaluate the quality, validity, relevance, and significance of research before publication to maintain the credibility of the publications they serve and their fields of study. 1 , 2 , 7   Although peer reviewers are not the final decision makers on publication (that role belongs to the editor), their recommendations affect editorial decisions and thoughtful comments influence an article’s fate. 6 , 8  

As advisors and evaluators of manuscripts, reviewers have an opportunity and responsibility to give authors an outside expert’s perspective on their work. 9   They provide feedback that can improve methodology, enhance rigor, improve clarity, and redefine the scope of articles. 5 , 8 , 10   This often happens even if a paper is not ultimately accepted at the reviewer’s journal because peer reviewers’ comments are incorporated into revised drafts that are submitted to another journal. In a 2019 survey of authors, reviewers, and editors, 83% said that peer review helps science communication and 90% of authors reported that peer review improved their last paper. 11  

Expertise: Peer reviewers should be up to date with current literature, practice guidelines, and methodology within their subject area. However, academic rank and seniority do not define expertise and are not actually correlated with performance in peer review. 13  

Professionalism: Reviewers should be reliable and objective, aware of their own biases, and respectful of the confidentiality of the peer review process.

Critical skill : Reviewers should be organized, thorough, and detailed in their critique with the goal of improving the manuscript under their review, regardless of disposition. They should provide constructive comments that are specific and addressable, referencing literature when possible. A peer reviewer should leave a paper better than he or she found it.

Is the manuscript within your area of expertise? Generally, if you are asked to review a paper, it is because an editor felt that you were a qualified expert. In a 2019 survey, 74% of requested reviews were within the reviewer’s area of expertise. 11   This, of course, does not mean that you must be widely published in the area, only that you have enough expertise and comfort with the topic to critique and add to the paper.

Do you have any biases that may affect your review? Are there elements of the methodology, content area, or theory with which you disagree? Some disagreements between authors and reviewers are common, expected, and even helpful. However, if a reviewer fundamentally disagrees with an author’s premise such that he or she cannot be constructive, the review invitation should be declined.

Do you have the time? The average review for a clinical journal takes 5 to 6 hours, though many take longer depending on the complexity of the research and the experience of the reviewer. 1 , 14   Journals vary on the requested timeline for return of reviews, though it is usually 1 to 4 weeks. Peer review is often the longest part of the publication process and delays contribute to slower dissemination of important work and decreased author satisfaction. 15   Be mindful of your schedule and only accept a review invitation if you can reasonably return the review in the requested time.

Once you have determined that you are the right person and decided to take on the review, reply to the inviting e-mail or click the associated link to accept (or decline) the invitation. Journal editors invite a limited number of reviewers at a time and wait for responses before inviting others. A common complaint among journal editors surveyed was that reviewers would often take days to weeks to respond to requests, or not respond at all, making it difficult to find appropriate reviewers and prolonging an already long process. 5  

Now that you have decided to take on the review, it is best of have a systematic way of both evaluating the manuscript and writing the review. Various suggestions exist in the literature, but we will describe our standard procedure for review, incorporating specific do’s and don’ts summarized in Table 1 .

Dos and Don’ts of Peer Review

First, read the manuscript once without making notes or forming opinions to get a sense of the paper as whole. Assess the overall tone and flow and define what the authors identify as the main point of their work. Does the work overall make sense? Do the authors tell the story effectively?

Next, read the manuscript again with an eye toward review, taking notes and formulating thoughts on strengths and weaknesses. Consider the methodology and identify the specific type of research described. Refer to the corresponding reporting guideline if applicable (CONSORT for randomized control trials, STROBE for observational studies, PRISMA for systematic reviews). Reporting guidelines often include a checklist, flow diagram, or structured text giving a minimum list of information needed in a manuscript based on the type of research done. 16   This allows the reviewer to formulate a more nuanced and specific assessment of the manuscript.

Next, review the main findings, the significance of the work, and what contribution it makes to the field. Examine the presentation and flow of the manuscript but do not copy edit the text. At this point, you should start to write your review. Some journals provide a format for their reviews, but often it is up to the reviewer. In surveys of journal editors and reviewers, a review organized by manuscript section was the most favored, 5 , 6   so that is what we will describe here.

As you write your review, consider starting with a brief summary of the work that identifies the main topic, explains the basic approach, and describes the findings and conclusions. 12 , 17   Though not universally included in all reviews, we have found this step to be helpful in ensuring that the work is conveyed clearly enough for the reviewer to summarize it. Include brief notes on the significance of the work and what it adds to current knowledge. Critique the presentation of the work: is it clearly written? Is its length appropriate? List any major concerns with the work overall, such as major methodological flaws or inaccurate conclusions that should disqualify it from publication, though do not comment directly on disposition. Then perform your review by section:

Abstract : Is it consistent with the rest of the paper? Does it adequately describe the major points?

Introduction : This section should provide adequate background to explain the need for the study. Generally, classic or highly relevant studies should be cited, but citations do not have to be exhaustive. The research question and hypothesis should be clearly stated.

Methods: Evaluate both the methods themselves and the way in which they are explained. Does the methodology used meet the needs of the questions proposed? Is there sufficient detail to explain what the authors did and, if not, what needs to be added? For clinical research, examine the inclusion/exclusion criteria, control populations, and possible sources of bias. Reporting guidelines can be particularly helpful in determining the appropriateness of the methods and how they are reported.

Some journals will expect an evaluation of the statistics used, whereas others will have a separate statistician evaluate, and the reviewers are generally not expected to have an exhaustive knowledge of statistical methods. Clarify expectations if needed and, if you do not feel qualified to evaluate the statistics, make this clear in your review.

Results: Evaluate the presentation of the results. Is information given in sufficient detail to assess credibility? Are the results consistent with the methodology reported? Are the figures and tables consistent with the text, easy to interpret, and relevant to the work? Make note of data that could be better detailed in figures or tables, rather than included in the text. Make note of inappropriate interpretation in the results section (this should be in discussion) or rehashing of methods.

Discussion: Evaluate the authors’ interpretation of their results, how they address limitations, and the implications of their work. How does the work contribute to the field, and do the authors adequately describe those contributions? Make note of overinterpretation or conclusions not supported by the data.

The length of your review often correlates with your opinion of the quality of the work. If an article has major flaws that you think preclude publication, write a brief review that focuses on the big picture. Articles that may not be accepted but still represent quality work merit longer reviews aimed at helping the author improve the work for resubmission elsewhere.

Generally, do not include your recommendation on disposition in the body of the review itself. Acceptance or rejection is ultimately determined by the editor and including your recommendation in your comments to the authors can be confusing. A journal editor’s decision on acceptance or rejection may depend on more factors than just the quality of the work, including the subject area, journal priorities, other contemporaneous submissions, and page constraints.

Many submission sites include a separate question asking whether to accept, accept with major revision, or reject. If this specific format is not included, then add your recommendation in the “confidential notes to the editor.” Your recommendation should be consistent with the content of your review: don’t give a glowing review but recommend rejection or harshly criticize a manuscript but recommend publication. Last, regardless of your ultimate recommendation on disposition, it is imperative to use respectful and professional language and tone in your written review.

Although peer review is often described as the “gatekeeper” of science and characterized as a quality control measure, peer review is not ideally designed to detect fundamental errors, plagiarism, or fraud. In multiple studies, peer reviewers detected only 20% to 33% of intentionally inserted errors in scientific manuscripts. 18 , 19   Plagiarism similarly is not detected in peer review, largely because of the huge volume of literature available to plagiarize. Most journals now use computer software to identify plagiarism before a manuscript goes to peer review. Finally, outright fraud often goes undetected in peer review. Reviewers start from a position of respect for the authors and trust the data they are given barring obvious inconsistencies. Ultimately, reviewers are “gatekeepers, not detectives.” 7  

Peer review is also limited by bias. Even with the best of intentions, reviewers bring biases including but not limited to prestige bias, affiliation bias, nationality bias, language bias, gender bias, content bias, confirmation bias, bias against interdisciplinary research, publication bias, conservatism, and bias of conflict of interest. 3 , 4 , 6   For example, peer reviewers score methodology higher and are more likely to recommend publication when prestigious author names or institutions are visible. 20   Although bias can be mitigated both by the reviewer and by the journal, it cannot be eliminated. Reviewers should be mindful of their own biases while performing reviews and work to actively mitigate them. For example, if English language editing is necessary, state this with specific examples rather than suggesting the authors seek editing by a “native English speaker.”

Peer review is an essential, though imperfect, part of the forward movement of science. Peer review can function as both a gatekeeper to protect the published record of science and a mechanism to improve research at the level of individual manuscripts. Here, we have described our strategy, summarized in Table 2 , for performing a thorough peer review, with a focus on organization, objectivity, and constructiveness. By using a systematized strategy to evaluate manuscripts and an organized format for writing reviews, you can provide a relatively objective perspective in editorial decision-making. By providing specific and constructive feedback to authors, you contribute to the quality of the published literature.

Take-home Points

FUNDING: No external funding.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST DISCLOSURES: The authors have indicated they have no potential conflicts of interest to disclose.

Dr Lu performed the literature review and wrote the manuscript. Dr Fischer assisted in the literature review and reviewed and edited the manuscript. Dr Plesac provided background information on the process of peer review, reviewed and edited the manuscript, and completed revisions. Dr Olson provided background information and practical advice, critically reviewed and revised the manuscript, and approved the final manuscript.

Advertising Disclaimer »

Citing articles via

Email alerts.

Affiliations

• Editorial Board
• Editorial Policies
• Pediatrics On Call
• Online ISSN 2154-1671
• Print ISSN 2154-1663
• Pediatrics Open Science
• Hospital Pediatrics
• Pediatrics in Review
• AAP Grand Rounds
• Latest News
• Pediatric Care Online
• Red Book Online
• Pediatric Patient Education
• AAP Toolkits
• AAP Pediatric Coding Newsletter

First 1,000 Days Knowledge Center

Institutions/librarians, group practices, licensing/permissions, integrations, advertising.

• Privacy Statement | Accessibility Statement | Terms of Use | Support Center | Contact Us
• © Copyright American Academy of Pediatrics

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

• Skip to primary navigation
• Skip to main content
• Skip to primary sidebar
• Skip to footer

Understanding Science

How science REALLY works...

• Understanding Science 101
• Peer-reviewed journals are publications in which scientific contributions have been vetted by experts in the relevant field.
• Peer-reviewed articles provide a trusted form of scientific communication. Peer-reviewed work isn’t necessarily correct or conclusive, but it does meet the standards of science.

Scrutinizing science: Peer review

In science, peer review helps provide assurance that published research meets minimum standards for scientific quality. Peer review typically works something like this:

• A group of scientists completes a study and writes it up in the form of an article. They submit it to a journal for publication.
• The journal’s editors send the article to several other scientists who work in the same field (i.e., the “peers” of peer review).
• Those reviewers provide feedback on the article and tell the editor whether or not they think the study is of high enough quality to be published.
• The authors may then revise their article and resubmit it for consideration.
• Only articles that meet good scientific standards (e.g., acknowledge and build upon other work in the field, rely on logical reasoning and well-designed studies, back up claims with evidence , etc.) are accepted for publication.

Peer review and publication are time-consuming, frequently involving more than a year between submission and publication. The process is also highly competitive. For example, the highly-regarded journal Science accepts less than 8% of the articles it receives, and The New England Journal of Medicine publishes just 6% of its submissions.

Peer-reviewed articles provide a trusted form of scientific communication. Even if you are unfamiliar with the topic or the scientists who authored a particular study, you can trust peer-reviewed work to meet certain standards of scientific quality. Since scientific knowledge is cumulative and builds on itself, this trust is particularly important. No scientist would want to base their own work on someone else’s unreliable study! Peer-reviewed work isn’t necessarily correct or conclusive, but it does meet the standards of science. And that means that once a piece of scientific research passes through peer review and is published, science must deal with it somehow — perhaps by incorporating it into the established body of scientific knowledge, building on it further, figuring out why it is wrong, or trying to replicate its results.

PEER REVIEW: NOT JUST SCIENCE

Many fields outside of science use peer review to ensure quality. Philosophy journals, for example, make publication decisions based on the reviews of other philosophers, and the same is true of scholarly journals on topics as diverse as law, art, and ethics. Even those outside the research community often use some form of peer review. Figure-skating championships may be judged by former skaters and coaches. Wine-makers may help evaluate wine in competitions. Artists may help judge art contests. So while peer review is a hallmark of science, it is not unique to science.

• Science in action
• Take a sidetrip

What’s peer review good for? To find out, explore what happens when the process is by-passed. Visit  Cold fusion: A case study for scientific behavior .

• To find out how to tell if research is peer-reviewed and why this is important, check out this  handy guide from Sense About Science .
• Advanced: Visit the Visionlearning website for advanced material on peer review .
• Advanced: Visit The Scientist  magazine to learn about  how peer review benefits the people doing the reviewing .

Publish or perish?

Copycats in science: The role of replication

Subscribe to our newsletter

• The science flowchart
• Science stories
• Grade-level teaching guides
• Teaching resource database
• Journaling tool
• Misconceptions

• Langson Library
• Science Library
• Grunigen Medical Library
• Law Library
• Connect From Off-Campus
• Accessibility
• Gateway Study Center

Email this link

Writing a scientific paper.

• Writing a lab report
• INTRODUCTION
• LITERATURE CITED
• Bibliography of guides to scientific writing and presenting

Peer Review

What is "good" editing, helpful hints for peer review.

• Presentations
• Lab Report Writing Guides on the Web

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER I COMPLETE MY PAPER?

 The peer review process is the quality control step in the publication of ideas.  Papers that are submitted to a journal for publication are sent out to several scientists (peers) who look carefully at the paper to see if it is "good science".  These reviewers then recommend to the editor of a journal whether or not a paper should be published. Most journals have publication guidelines. Ask for them and follow them exactly.    Peer reviewers examine the soundness of the materials and methods section.  Are the materials and methods used written clearly enough for another scientist to reproduce the experiment?  Other areas they look at are: originality of research, significance of research question studied, soundness of the discussion and interpretation, correct spelling and use of technical terms, and length of the article.

A major part of any writing assignment consists of re-writing. Write accurately

Scientific writing must be accurate. Although writing instructors may tell you not to use the same word twice in a sentence, it's okay for scientific writing, which must be accurate.

Make sure you say what you mean.

Be careful with commonly confused words

Write clearly

Write at a level that's appropriate for your audience.

Use the active voice. It's clearer and more concise than the passive voice.

Use the first person.

 Instead of: The samples were analyzed

Write: I analyzed the samples

Avoid dangling participles.

 "After incubating at 30 degrees C, we examined the petri plates." (You must've been pretty warm in there.)

 Write succinctly  

Use concise words and strong verbs.

 Use short sentences. A sentence made of more than 40 words should probably be rewritten as two sentences.

  Check your grammar, spelling and punctuation

Use a spellchecker, but be aware that they don't catch all mistakes.

Your spellchecker may not recognize scientific terms. For the correct spelling, try Biotech's Life Science Dictionary or one of the technical dictionaries on the reference shelf in the Biology or Health Sciences libraries.

Don't, use, unnecessary, commas.

Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.

Adapted from: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/biology/ug/research/paper.html

• Helpful Hints from Bates College Useful Guide from Bates College on how to review another person's work.
• << Previous: Bibliography of guides to scientific writing and presenting
• Next: Presentations >>
• Last Updated: Aug 4, 2023 9:33 AM
• URL: https://guides.lib.uci.edu/scientificwriting

Off-campus? Please use the Software VPN and choose the group UCIFull to access licensed content. For more information, please Click here

Software VPN is not available for guests, so they may not have access to some content when connecting from off-campus.

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

• Knowledge Base

Methodology

• What Is Peer Review? | Types & Examples

What Is Peer Review? | Types & Examples

Published on December 17, 2021 by Tegan George . Revised on June 22, 2023.

Peer review, sometimes referred to as refereeing , is the process of evaluating submissions to an academic journal. Using strict criteria, a panel of reviewers in the same subject area decides whether to accept each submission for publication.

Peer-reviewed articles are considered a highly credible source due to the stringent process they go through before publication.

There are various types of peer review. The main difference between them is to what extent the authors, reviewers, and editors know each other’s identities. The most common types are:

• Single-blind review
• Double-blind review
• Triple-blind review

Collaborative review

Open review.

Relatedly, peer assessment is a process where your peers provide you with feedback on something you’ve written, based on a set of criteria or benchmarks from an instructor. They then give constructive feedback, compliments, or guidance to help you improve your draft.

Table of contents

What is the purpose of peer review, types of peer review, the peer review process, providing feedback to your peers, peer review example, advantages of peer review, criticisms of peer review, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about peer reviews.

Many academic fields use peer review, largely to determine whether a manuscript is suitable for publication. Peer review enhances the credibility of the manuscript. For this reason, academic journals are among the most credible sources you can refer to.

However, peer review is also common in non-academic settings. The United Nations, the European Union, and many individual nations use peer review to evaluate grant applications. It is also widely used in medical and health-related fields as a teaching or quality-of-care measure.

Peer assessment is often used in the classroom as a pedagogical tool. Both receiving feedback and providing it are thought to enhance the learning process, helping students think critically and collaboratively.

Here's why students love Scribbr's proofreading services

Discover proofreading & editing

Depending on the journal, there are several types of peer review.

Single-blind peer review

The most common type of peer review is single-blind (or single anonymized) review . Here, the names of the reviewers are not known by the author.

While this gives the reviewers the ability to give feedback without the possibility of interference from the author, there has been substantial criticism of this method in the last few years. Many argue that single-blind reviewing can lead to poaching or intellectual theft or that anonymized comments cause reviewers to be too harsh.

Double-blind peer review

In double-blind (or double anonymized) review , both the author and the reviewers are anonymous.

Arguments for double-blind review highlight that this mitigates any risk of prejudice on the side of the reviewer, while protecting the nature of the process. In theory, it also leads to manuscripts being published on merit rather than on the reputation of the author.

Triple-blind peer review

While triple-blind (or triple anonymized) review —where the identities of the author, reviewers, and editors are all anonymized—does exist, it is difficult to carry out in practice.

Proponents of adopting triple-blind review for journal submissions argue that it minimizes potential conflicts of interest and biases. However, ensuring anonymity is logistically challenging, and current editing software is not always able to fully anonymize everyone involved in the process.

In collaborative review , authors and reviewers interact with each other directly throughout the process. However, the identity of the reviewer is not known to the author. This gives all parties the opportunity to resolve any inconsistencies or contradictions in real time, and provides them a rich forum for discussion. It can mitigate the need for multiple rounds of editing and minimize back-and-forth.

Collaborative review can be time- and resource-intensive for the journal, however. For these collaborations to occur, there has to be a set system in place, often a technological platform, with staff monitoring and fixing any bugs or glitches.

Lastly, in open review , all parties know each other’s identities throughout the process. Often, open review can also include feedback from a larger audience, such as an online forum, or reviewer feedback included as part of the final published product.

While many argue that greater transparency prevents plagiarism or unnecessary harshness, there is also concern about the quality of future scholarship if reviewers feel they have to censor their comments.

In general, the peer review process includes the following steps:

• First, the author submits the manuscript to the editor.
• Reject the manuscript and send it back to the author, or
• Send it onward to the selected peer reviewer(s)
• Next, the peer review process occurs. The reviewer provides feedback, addressing any major or minor issues with the manuscript, and gives their advice regarding what edits should be made.
• Lastly, the edited manuscript is sent back to the author. They input the edits and resubmit it to the editor for publication.

In an effort to be transparent, many journals are now disclosing who reviewed each article in the published product. There are also increasing opportunities for collaboration and feedback, with some journals allowing open communication between reviewers and authors.

It can seem daunting at first to conduct a peer review or peer assessment. If you’re not sure where to start, there are several best practices you can use.

Summarize the argument in your own words

Summarizing the main argument helps the author see how their argument is interpreted by readers, and gives you a jumping-off point for providing feedback. If you’re having trouble doing this, it’s a sign that the argument needs to be clearer, more concise, or worded differently.

If the author sees that you’ve interpreted their argument differently than they intended, they have an opportunity to address any misunderstandings when they get the manuscript back.

Separate your feedback into major and minor issues

It can be challenging to keep feedback organized. One strategy is to start out with any major issues and then flow into the more minor points. It’s often helpful to keep your feedback in a numbered list, so the author has concrete points to refer back to.

Major issues typically consist of any problems with the style, flow, or key points of the manuscript. Minor issues include spelling errors, citation errors, or other smaller, easy-to-apply feedback.

Tip: Try not to focus too much on the minor issues. If the manuscript has a lot of typos, consider making a note that the author should address spelling and grammar issues, rather than going through and fixing each one.

The best feedback you can provide is anything that helps them strengthen their argument or resolve major stylistic issues.

Give the type of feedback that you would like to receive

No one likes being criticized, and it can be difficult to give honest feedback without sounding overly harsh or critical. One strategy you can use here is the “compliment sandwich,” where you “sandwich” your constructive criticism between two compliments.

Be sure you are giving concrete, actionable feedback that will help the author submit a successful final draft. While you shouldn’t tell them exactly what they should do, your feedback should help them resolve any issues they may have overlooked.

As a rule of thumb, your feedback should be:

• Easy to understand
• Constructive

Receive feedback on language, structure, and formatting

Professional editors proofread and edit your paper by focusing on:

• Academic style
• Vague sentences
• Style consistency

See an example

Below is a brief annotated research example. You can view examples of peer feedback by hovering over the highlighted sections.

Influence of phone use on sleep

Studies show that teens from the US are getting less sleep than they were a decade ago (Johnson, 2019) . On average, teens only slept for 6 hours a night in 2021, compared to 8 hours a night in 2011. Johnson mentions several potential causes, such as increased anxiety, changed diets, and increased phone use.

The current study focuses on the effect phone use before bedtime has on the number of hours of sleep teens are getting.

For this study, a sample of 300 teens was recruited using social media, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. The first week, all teens were allowed to use their phone the way they normally would, in order to obtain a baseline.

The sample was then divided into 3 groups:

• Group 1 was not allowed to use their phone before bedtime.
• Group 2 used their phone for 1 hour before bedtime.
• Group 3 used their phone for 3 hours before bedtime.

All participants were asked to go to sleep around 10 p.m. to control for variation in bedtime . In the morning, their Fitbit showed the number of hours they’d slept. They kept track of these numbers themselves for 1 week.

Two independent t tests were used in order to compare Group 1 and Group 2, and Group 1 and Group 3. The first t test showed no significant difference ( p > .05) between the number of hours for Group 1 ( M = 7.8, SD = 0.6) and Group 2 ( M = 7.0, SD = 0.8). The second t test showed a significant difference ( p < .01) between the average difference for Group 1 ( M = 7.8, SD = 0.6) and Group 3 ( M = 6.1, SD = 1.5).

This shows that teens sleep fewer hours a night if they use their phone for over an hour before bedtime, compared to teens who use their phone for 0 to 1 hours.

Peer review is an established and hallowed process in academia, dating back hundreds of years. It provides various fields of study with metrics, expectations, and guidance to ensure published work is consistent with predetermined standards.

• Protects the quality of published research

Peer review can stop obviously problematic, falsified, or otherwise untrustworthy research from being published. Any content that raises red flags for reviewers can be closely examined in the review stage, preventing plagiarized or duplicated research from being published.

• Gives you access to feedback from experts in your field

Peer review represents an excellent opportunity to get feedback from renowned experts in your field and to improve your writing through their feedback and guidance. Experts with knowledge about your subject matter can give you feedback on both style and content, and they may also suggest avenues for further research that you hadn’t yet considered.

• Helps you identify any weaknesses in your argument

Peer review acts as a first defense, helping you ensure your argument is clear and that there are no gaps, vague terms, or unanswered questions for readers who weren’t involved in the research process. This way, you’ll end up with a more robust, more cohesive article.

While peer review is a widely accepted metric for credibility, it’s not without its drawbacks.

• Reviewer bias

The more transparent double-blind system is not yet very common, which can lead to bias in reviewing. A common criticism is that an excellent paper by a new researcher may be declined, while an objectively lower-quality submission by an established researcher would be accepted.

• Delays in publication

The thoroughness of the peer review process can lead to significant delays in publishing time. Research that was current at the time of submission may not be as current by the time it’s published. There is also high risk of publication bias , where journals are more likely to publish studies with positive findings than studies with negative findings.

• Risk of human error

By its very nature, peer review carries a risk of human error. In particular, falsification often cannot be detected, given that reviewers would have to replicate entire experiments to ensure the validity of results.

If you want to know more about statistics , methodology , or research bias , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Normal distribution
• Measures of central tendency
• Chi square tests
• Confidence interval
• Quartiles & Quantiles
• Cluster sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Thematic analysis
• Discourse analysis
• Cohort study
• Ethnography

Research bias

• Implicit bias
• Cognitive bias
• Conformity bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Availability heuristic
• Attrition bias
• Social desirability bias

Peer review is a process of evaluating submissions to an academic journal. Utilizing rigorous criteria, a panel of reviewers in the same subject area decide whether to accept each submission for publication. For this reason, academic journals are often considered among the most credible sources you can use in a research project– provided that the journal itself is trustworthy and well-regarded.

In general, the peer review process follows the following steps: 

• Reject the manuscript and send it back to author, or 
• Send it onward to the selected peer reviewer(s) 
• Next, the peer review process occurs. The reviewer provides feedback, addressing any major or minor issues with the manuscript, and gives their advice regarding what edits should be made. 
• Lastly, the edited manuscript is sent back to the author. They input the edits, and resubmit it to the editor for publication.

Peer review can stop obviously problematic, falsified, or otherwise untrustworthy research from being published. It also represents an excellent opportunity to get feedback from renowned experts in your field. It acts as a first defense, helping you ensure your argument is clear and that there are no gaps, vague terms, or unanswered questions for readers who weren’t involved in the research process.

Peer-reviewed articles are considered a highly credible source due to this stringent process they go through before publication.

Many academic fields use peer review , largely to determine whether a manuscript is suitable for publication. Peer review enhances the credibility of the published manuscript.

However, peer review is also common in non-academic settings. The United Nations, the European Union, and many individual nations use peer review to evaluate grant applications. It is also widely used in medical and health-related fields as a teaching or quality-of-care measure. 

A credible source should pass the CRAAP test  and follow these guidelines:

• The information should be up to date and current.
• The author and publication should be a trusted authority on the subject you are researching.
• The sources the author cited should be easy to find, clear, and unbiased.
• For a web source, the URL and layout should signify that it is trustworthy.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

George, T. (2023, June 22). What Is Peer Review? | Types & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved November 17, 2023, from https://www.scribbr.com/methodology/peer-review/

Is this article helpful?

Tegan George

Other students also liked, what are credible sources & how to spot them | examples, ethical considerations in research | types & examples, applying the craap test & evaluating sources, what is your plagiarism score.

The peer review process

The peer review process can be broadly summarized into 10 steps, although these steps can vary slightly between journals. Explore what’s involved, below.

Editor Feedback: “Reviewers should remember that they are representing the readers of the journal. Will the readers of this particular journal find this informative and useful?”

1. Submission of Paper

The corresponding or submitting author submits the paper to the journal. This is usually via an online system such as ScholarOne Manuscripts. Occasionally, journals may accept submissions by email.

2. Editorial Office Assessment

The Editorial Office checks that the paper adheres to the requirements described in the journal’s Author Guidelines. The quality of the paper is not assessed at this point.

3. Appraisal by the Editor-in-Chief (EIC)

The EIC checks assesses the paper, considering its scope, originality and merits. The EiC may reject the paper at this stage.

4. EIC Assigns an Associate Editor (AE)

Some journals have Associate Editors ( or equivalent ) who handle the peer review. If they do, they would be assigned at this stage.

5. Invitation to Reviewers

The handling editor sends invitations to individuals he or she believes would be appropriate reviewers. As responses are received, further invitations are issued, if necessary, until the required number of reviewers is secured– commonly this is 2, but there is some variation between journals.

6. Response to Invitations

Potential reviewers consider the invitation against their own expertise, conflicts of interest and availability. They then accept or decline the invitation to review. If possible, when declining, they might also suggest alternative reviewers.

7. Review is Conducted

The reviewer sets time aside to read the paper several times. The first read is used to form an initial impression of the work. If major problems are found at this stage, the reviewer may feel comfortable rejecting the paper without further work. Otherwise, they will read the paper several more times, taking notes to build a detailed point-by-point review. The review is then submitted to the journal, with the reviewer’s recommendation (e.g. to revise, accept or reject the paper).

8. Journal Evaluates the Reviews

The handling editor considers all the returned reviews before making a decision. If the reviews differ widely, the editor may invite an additional reviewer so as to get an extra opinion before making a decision.

9. The Decision is Communicated

The editor sends a decision email to the author including any relevant reviewer comments. Comments will be anonymous if the journal follows a single-anonymous or double-anonymous peer review model. Journals with following an open or transparent peer review model will share the identities of the reviewers with the author(s).

10. Next Steps

An editor's perspective.

Listen to a podcast from Roger Watson, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Advanced Nursing, as he discusses 'The peer review process'.

If accepted , the paper is sent to production. If the article is rejected or sent back for either major or minor revision , the handling editor should include constructive comments from the reviewers to help the author improve the article. At this point, reviewers should also be sent an email or letter letting them know the outcome of their review. If the paper was sent back for revision , the reviewers should expect to receive a new version, unless they have opted out of further participation. However, where only minor changes were requested this follow-up review might be done by the handling editor.

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings
• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• J R Soc Med
• v.99(4); 2006 Apr

Peer review: a flawed process at the heart of science and journals

Peer review is at the heart of the processes of not just medical journals but of all of science. It is the method by which grants are allocated, papers published, academics promoted, and Nobel prizes won. Yet it is hard to define. It has until recently been unstudied. And its defects are easier to identify than its attributes. Yet it shows no sign of going away. Famously, it is compared with democracy: a system full of problems but the least worst we have.

When something is peer reviewed it is in some sense blessed. Even journalists recognize this. When the BMJ published a highly controversial paper that argued that a new `disease', female sexual dysfunction, was in some ways being created by pharmaceutical companies, a friend who is a journalist was very excited—not least because reporting it gave him a chance to get sex onto the front page of a highly respectable but somewhat priggish newspaper (the Financial Times ). `But,' the news editor wanted to know, `was this paper peer reviewed?'. The implication was that if it had been it was good enough for the front page and if it had not been it was not. Well, had it been? I had read it much more carefully than I read many papers and had asked the author, who happened to be a journalist, to revise the paper and produce more evidence. But this was not peer review, even though I was a peer of the author and had reviewed the paper. Or was it? (I told my friend that it had not been peer reviewed, but it was too late to pull the story from the front page.)

WHAT IS PEER REVIEW?

My point is that peer review is impossible to define in operational terms (an operational definition is one whereby if 50 of us looked at the same process we could all agree most of the time whether or not it was peer review). Peer review is thus like poetry, love, or justice. But it is something to do with a grant application or a paper being scrutinized by a third party—who is neither the author nor the person making a judgement on whether a grant should be given or a paper published. But who is a peer? Somebody doing exactly the same kind of research (in which case he or she is probably a direct competitor)? Somebody in the same discipline? Somebody who is an expert on methodology? And what is review? Somebody saying `The paper looks all right to me', which is sadly what peer review sometimes seems to be. Or somebody pouring all over the paper, asking for raw data, repeating analyses, checking all the references, and making detailed suggestions for improvement? Such a review is vanishingly rare.

What is clear is that the forms of peer review are protean. Probably the systems of every journal and every grant giving body are different in at least some detail; and some systems are very different. There may even be some journals using the following classic system. The editor looks at the title of the paper and sends it to two friends whom the editor thinks know something about the subject. If both advise publication the editor sends it to the printers. If both advise against publication the editor rejects the paper. If the reviewers disagree the editor sends it to a third reviewer and does whatever he or she advises. This pastiche—which is not far from systems I have seen used—is little better than tossing a coin, because the level of agreement between reviewers on whether a paper should be published is little better than you'd expect by chance. 1

That is why Robbie Fox, the great 20th century editor of the Lancet , who was no admirer of peer review, wondered whether anybody would notice if he were to swap the piles marked `publish' and `reject'. He also joked that the Lancet had a system of throwing a pile of papers down the stairs and publishing those that reached the bottom. When I was editor of the BMJ I was challenged by two of the cleverest researchers in Britain to publish an issue of the journal comprised only of papers that had failed peer review and see if anybody noticed. I wrote back `How do you know I haven't already done it?'

DOES PEER REVIEW `WORK' AND WHAT IS IT FOR?

But does peer review `work' at all? A systematic review of all the available evidence on peer review concluded that `the practice of peer review is based on faith in its effects, rather than on facts'. 2 But the answer to the question on whether peer review works depends on the question `What is peer review for?'.

One answer is that it is a method to select the best grant applications for funding and the best papers to publish in a journal. It is hard to test this aim because there is no agreed definition of what constitutes a good paper or a good research proposal. Plus what is peer review to be tested against? Chance? Or a much simpler process? Stephen Lock when editor of the BMJ conducted a study in which he alone decided which of a consecutive series of papers submitted to the journal he would publish. He then let the papers go through the usual process. There was little difference between the papers he chose and those selected after the full process of peer review. 1 This small study suggests that perhaps you do not need an elaborate process. Maybe a lone editor, thoroughly familiar with what the journal wants and knowledgeable about research methods, would be enough. But it would be a bold journal that stepped aside from the sacred path of peer review.

Another answer to the question of what is peer review for is that it is to improve the quality of papers published or research proposals that are funded. The systematic review found little evidence to support this, but again such studies are hampered by the lack of an agreed definition of a good study or a good research proposal.

Peer review might also be useful for detecting errors or fraud. At the BMJ we did several studies where we inserted major errors into papers that we then sent to many reviewers. 3 , 4 Nobody ever spotted all of the errors. Some reviewers did not spot any, and most reviewers spotted only about a quarter. Peer review sometimes picks up fraud by chance, but generally it is not a reliable method for detecting fraud because it works on trust. A major question, which I will return to, is whether peer review and journals should cease to work on trust.

THE DEFECTS OF PEER REVIEW

So we have little evidence on the effectiveness of peer review, but we have considerable evidence on its defects. In addition to being poor at detecting gross defects and almost useless for detecting fraud it is slow, expensive, profligate of academic time, highly subjective, something of a lottery, prone to bias, and easily abused.

Slow and expensive

Many journals, even in the age of the internet, take more than a year to review and publish a paper. It is hard to get good data on the cost of peer review, particularly because reviewers are often not paid (the same, come to that, is true of many editors). Yet there is a substantial `opportunity cost', as economists call it, in that the time spent reviewing could be spent doing something more productive—like original research. I estimate that the average cost of peer review per paper for the BMJ (remembering that the journal rejected 60% without external review) was of the order of £100, whereas the cost of a paper that made it right though the system was closer to £1000.

The cost of peer review has become important because of the open access movement, which hopes to make research freely available to everybody. With the current publishing model peer review is usually `free' to authors, and publishers make their money by charging institutions to access the material. One open access model is that authors will pay for peer review and the cost of posting their article on a website. So those offering or proposing this system have had to come up with a figure—which is currently between $500-$2500 per article. Those promoting the open access system calculate that at the moment the academic community pays about $5000 for access to a peer reviewed paper. (The $5000 is obviously paying for much more than peer review: it includes other editorial costs, distribution costs—expensive with paper—and a big chunk of profit for the publisher.) So there may be substantial financial gains to be had by academics if the model for publishing science changes.

There is an obvious irony in people charging for a process that is not proved to be effective, but that is how much the scientific community values its faith in peer review.

Inconsistent

People have a great many fantasies about peer review, and one of the most powerful is that it is a highly objective, reliable, and consistent process. I regularly received letters from authors who were upset that the BMJ rejected their paper and then published what they thought to be a much inferior paper on the same subject. Always they saw something underhand. They found it hard to accept that peer review is a subjective and, therefore, inconsistent process. But it is probably unreasonable to expect it to be objective and consistent. If I ask people to rank painters like Titian, Tintoretto, Bellini, Carpaccio, and Veronese, I would never expect them to come up with the same order. A scientific study submitted to a medical journal may not be as complex a work as a Tintoretto altarpiece, but it is complex. Inevitably people will take different views on its strengths, weaknesses, and importance.

So, the evidence is that if reviewers are asked to give an opinion on whether or not a paper should be published they agree only slightly more than they would be expected to agree by chance. (I am conscious that this evidence conflicts with the study of Stephen Lock showing that he alone and the whole BMJ peer review process tended to reach the same decision on which papers should be published. The explanation may be that being the editor who had designed the BMJ process and appointed the editors and reviewers it was not surprising that they were fashioned in his image and made similar decisions.)

Sometimes the inconsistency can be laughable. Here is an example of two reviewers commenting on the same papers.

Reviewer A: `I found this paper an extremely muddled paper with a large number of deficits' Reviewer B: `It is written in a clear style and would be understood by any reader'.

This—perhaps inevitable—inconsistency can make peer review something of a lottery. You submit a study to a journal. It enters a system that is effectively a black box, and then a more or less sensible answer comes out at the other end. The black box is like the roulette wheel, and the prizes and the losses can be big. For an academic, publication in a major journal like Nature or Cell is to win the jackpot.

The evidence on whether there is bias in peer review against certain sorts of authors is conflicting, but there is strong evidence of bias against women in the process of awarding grants. 5 The most famous piece of evidence on bias against authors comes from a study by DP Peters and SJ Ceci. 6 They took 12 studies that came from prestigious institutions that had already been published in psychology journals. They retyped the papers, made minor changes to the titles, abstracts, and introductions but changed the authors' names and institutions. They invented institutions with names like the Tri-Valley Center for Human Potential. The papers were then resubmitted to the journals that had first published them. In only three cases did the journals realize that they had already published the paper, and eight of the remaining nine were rejected—not because of lack of originality but because of poor quality. Peters and Ceci concluded that this was evidence of bias against authors from less prestigious institutions.

This is known as the Mathew effect: `To those who have, shall be given; to those who have not shall be taken away even the little that they have'. I remember feeling the effect strongly when as a young editor I had to consider a paper submitted to the BMJ by Karl Popper. 7 I was unimpressed and thought we should reject the paper. But we could not. The power of the name was too strong. So we published, and time has shown we were right to do so. The paper argued that we should pay much more attention to error in medicine, about 20 years before many papers appeared arguing the same.

The editorial peer review process has been strongly biased against `negative studies', i.e. studies that find an intervention does not work. It is also clear that authors often do not even bother to write up such studies. This matters because it biases the information base of medicine. It is easy to see why journals would be biased against negative studies. Journalistic values come into play. Who wants to read that a new treatment does not work? That's boring.

We became very conscious of this bias at the BMJ; we always tried to concentrate not on the results of a study we were considering but on the question it was asking. If the question is important and the answer valid, then it must not matter whether the answer is positive or negative. I fear, however, that bias is not so easily abolished and persists.

The Lancet has tried to get round the problem by agreeing to consider the protocols (plans) for studies yet to be done. 8 If it thinks the protocol sound and if the protocol is followed, the Lancet will publish the final results regardless of whether they are positive or negative. Such a system also has the advantage of stopping resources being spent on poor studies. The main disadvantage is that it increases the sum of peer reviewing—because most protocols will need to be reviewed in order to get funding to perform the study.

Abuse of peer review

There are several ways to abuse the process of peer review. You can steal ideas and present them as your own, or produce an unjustly harsh review to block or at least slow down the publication of the ideas of a competitor. These have all happened. Drummond Rennie tells the story of a paper he sent, when deputy editor of the New England Journal of Medicine , for review to Vijay Soman. 9 Having produced a critical review of the paper, Soman copied some of the paragraphs and submitted it to another journal, the American Journal of Medicine . This journal, by coincidence, sent it for review to the boss of the author of the plagiarized paper. She realized that she had been plagiarized and objected strongly. She threatened to denounce Soman but was advised against it. Eventually, however, Soman was discovered to have invented data and patients, and left the country. Rennie learnt a lesson that he never subsequently forgot but which medical authorities seem reluctant to accept: those who behave dishonestly in one way are likely to do so in other ways as well.

HOW TO IMPROVE PEER REVIEW?

The most important question with peer review is not whether to abandon it, but how to improve it. Many ideas have been advanced to do so, and an increasing number have been tested experimentally. The options include: standardizing procedures; opening up the process; blinding reviewers to the identity of authors; reviewing protocols; training reviewers; being more rigorous in selecting and deselecting reviewers; using electronic review; rewarding reviewers; providing detailed feedback to reviewers; using more checklists; or creating professional review agencies. It might be, however, that the best response would be to adopt a very quick and light form of peer review—and then let the broader world critique the paper or even perhaps rank it in the way that Amazon asks users to rank books and CDs.

I hope that it will not seem too indulgent if I describe the far from finished journey of the BMJ to try and improve peer review. We tried as we went to conduct experiments rather than simply introduce changes.

The most important step on the journey was realizing that peer review could be studied just like anything else. This was the idea of Stephen Lock, my predecessor as editor, together with Drummond Rennie and John Bailar. At the time it was a radical idea, and still seems radical to some—rather like conducting experiments with God or love.

Blinding reviewers to the identity of authors

The next important step was hearing the results of a randomized trial that showed that blinding reviewers to the identity of authors improved the quality of reviews (as measured by a validated instrument). 10 This trial, which was conducted by Bob McNutt, A T Evans, and Bob and Suzanne Fletcher, was important not only for its results but because it provided an experimental design for investigating peer review. Studies where you intervene and experiment allow more confident conclusions than studies where you observe without intervening.

This trial was repeated on a larger scale by the BMJ and by a group in the USA who conducted the study in many different journals. 11 , 12 Neither study found that blinding reviewers improved the quality of reviews. These studies also showed that such blinding is difficult to achieve (because many studies include internal clues on authorship), and that reviewers could identify the authors in about a quarter to a third of cases. But even when the results were analysed by looking at only those cases where blinding was successful there was no evidence of improved quality of the review.

Opening up peer review

At this point we at the BMJ thought that we would change direction dramatically and begin to open up the process. We hoped that increasing the accountability would improve the quality of review. We began by conducting a randomized trial of open review (meaning that the authors but not readers knew the identity of the reviewers) against traditional review. 13 It had no effect on the quality of reviewers' opinions. They were neither better nor worse. We went ahead and introduced the system routinely on ethical grounds: such important judgements should be open and acountable unless there were compelling reasons why they could not be—and there were not.

Our next step was to conduct a trial of our current open system against a system whereby every document associated with peer review, together with the names of everybody involved, was posted on the BMJ 's website when the paper was published. Once again this intervention had no effect on the quality of the opinion. We thus planned to make posting peer review documents the next stage in opening up our peer review process, but that has not yet happened—partly because the results of the trial have not yet been published and partly because this step required various technical developments.

The final step was, in my mind, to open up the whole process and conduct it in real time on the web in front of the eyes of anybody interested. Peer review would then be transformed from a black box into an open scientific discourse. Often I found the discourse around a study was a lot more interesting than the study itself. Now that I have left I am not sure if this system will be introduced.

Training reviewers

The BMJ also experimented with another possible way to improve peer review—by training reviewers. 4 It is perhaps extraordinary that there has been no formal training for such an important job. Reviewers learnt either by trial and error (without, it has to be said, very good feedback), or by working with an experienced reviewer (who might unfortunately be experienced but not very good).

Our randomized trial of training reviewers had three arms: one group got nothing; one group had a day's face-to-face training plus a CD-rom of the training; and the third group got just the CD-rom. The overall result was that training made little difference. 4 The groups that had training did show some evidence of improvement relative to those who had no training, but we did not think that the difference was big enough to be meaningful. We cannot conclude from this that longer or better training would not be helpful. A problem with our study was that most of the reviewers had been reviewing for a long time. `Old dogs cannot be taught new tricks', but the possibility remains that younger ones could.

TRUST IN SCIENCE AND PEER REVIEW

One difficult question is whether peer review should continue to operate on trust. Some have made small steps beyond into the world of audit. The Food and Drug Administration in the USA reserves the right to go and look at the records and raw data of those who produce studies that are used in applications for new drugs to receive licences. Sometimes it does so. Some journals, including the BMJ , make it a condition of submission that the editors can ask for the raw data behind a study. We did so once or twice, only to discover that reviewing raw data is difficult, expensive, and time consuming. I cannot see journals moving beyond trust in any major way unless the whole scientific enterprise moves in that direction.

So peer review is a flawed process, full of easily identified defects with little evidence that it works. Nevertheless, it is likely to remain central to science and journals because there is no obvious alternative, and scientists and editors have a continuing belief in peer review. How odd that science should be rooted in belief.

Richard Smith was editor of the BMJ and chief executive of the BMJ Publishing Group for 13 years. In his last year at the journal he retreated to a 15th century palazzo in Venice to write a book. The book will be published by RSM Press [ www.rsmpress.co.uk ], and this is the second in a series of extracts that will be published in the JRSM.

Peer Review in Scientific Publications: Benefits, Critiques, & A Survival Guide

Affiliations.

• 1 Clinical Biochemistry, Department of Pediatric Laboratory Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto , Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
• 2 Clinical Biochemistry, Department of Pediatric Laboratory Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada; Chair, Communications and Publications Division (CPD), International Federation for Sick Clinical Chemistry (IFCC), Milan, Italy.
• PMID: 27683470
• PMCID: PMC4975196

Peer review has been defined as a process of subjecting an author's scholarly work, research or ideas to the scrutiny of others who are experts in the same field. It functions to encourage authors to meet the accepted high standards of their discipline and to control the dissemination of research data to ensure that unwarranted claims, unacceptable interpretations or personal views are not published without prior expert review. Despite its wide-spread use by most journals, the peer review process has also been widely criticised due to the slowness of the process to publish new findings and due to perceived bias by the editors and/or reviewers. Within the scientific community, peer review has become an essential component of the academic writing process. It helps ensure that papers published in scientific journals answer meaningful research questions and draw accurate conclusions based on professionally executed experimentation. Submission of low quality manuscripts has become increasingly prevalent, and peer review acts as a filter to prevent this work from reaching the scientific community. The major advantage of a peer review process is that peer-reviewed articles provide a trusted form of scientific communication. Since scientific knowledge is cumulative and builds on itself, this trust is particularly important. Despite the positive impacts of peer review, critics argue that the peer review process stifles innovation in experimentation, and acts as a poor screen against plagiarism. Despite its downfalls, there has not yet been a foolproof system developed to take the place of peer review, however, researchers have been looking into electronic means of improving the peer review process. Unfortunately, the recent explosion in online only/electronic journals has led to mass publication of a large number of scientific articles with little or no peer review. This poses significant risk to advances in scientific knowledge and its future potential. The current article summarizes the peer review process, highlights the pros and cons associated with different types of peer review, and describes new methods for improving peer review.

Keywords: journal; manuscript; open access; peer review; publication.

• Subscribe to BBC Science Focus Magazine
• Previous Issues
• Future tech
• Everyday science
• Planet Earth
• Newsletters

What is 'peer review' for a scientific paper?

The peer-review process is designed to make sure research stands up to scrutiny.

Before a scientific paper is published in a journal, it is usually peer-reviewed. The aim is to make sure that the research is reliable and credible.

During the peer-review process, the paper will be vetted by a group of scientists who will assess if the science – the method, the analysis and the inferences drawn from the data – stands up to scrutiny. This is designed to weed out errors, misinterpretation or flawed research methods.

A 'pre-print' is a paper that has not yet been peer-reviewed or published in a journal. The peer-review process takes time, so in order to speed up the distribution of research, scientists sometimes post papers to pre-print archives before they are published in a journal.

• How do scientists develop vaccines for new viruses?
• What is maths?

Share this article

• Terms & Conditions
• Privacy policy
• Cookies policy
• Code of conduct
• Magazine subscriptions
• Manage preferences

ARTiFACTS / Blog / What is Peer Review in Science? A Complete Guide

• Science Students

What is Peer Review in Science? A Complete Guide

Table of contents:

In the age of “ fake news ,” peer-reviewed research has become one of the only sources of information inquiring minds can trust.

If you’re new to research, though, you may be wondering: what is peer review in science? And why is it so important?

The peer-review process has been around for hundreds of years. Despite its drawbacks, the system truly works to weed out invalid, poor quality, or unoriginal science. That way, you can always trust the peer-reviewed research you read.

Want to know more about peer review and how it affects your career as a research scientist? Then keep reading this article for everything you need to know.

What is a Peer Review in Science?

Peer review is a process of ensuring that new research is original and uses valid science. It is used in all areas of scientific and academic research activity from life sciences to astrophysics and psychology to social sciences.

The submitting author’s work is put before a panel of experts in the same field, who then review the scientific work and evaluates it based on originality, quality, and validity.

In other words, peer review allows the scientific community to continuously put out high-quality information. Information that practitioners, researchers, and students can trust.

If you ask most veteran scientists, they’ll probably tell you that there are  three main goals  of the peer-review process:

• To validate a piece of  academic work
• To ensure the quality of published research
• To increase networking opportunities among individuals in the research community

Each of these three goals contributes to the overarching theory behind peer review. That is, that science must be evaluated before being published.

A Brief History of Peer-Reviewed Research

Before there was ever such thing as a scholarly journal, historians believe ancient Greeks used the peer-review process to evaluate their ideas. A Syrian physician recorded evidence of such a process for the first time in 800-900 C.E.

A few hundred years later, the printing press was invented. From that point forward, academic communities could distribute books and articles to the general public.

Yet, with no regulation on what was being put out where and to whom, researchers recognized a need.

Francis Bacon fulfilled that need in 1620. The famed scientist and researcher published a book detailing what is now considered the seed of modern-day peer-reviewed research. The world’s first scientific journal emerged a few years later, putting in place a formal peer-review process.

Since then, the peer review process has evolved. It incorporated the goal of validity in the 18th century. Then, it added the goal of quality in the years following World War II.

Today, some researchers criticize the flaws of the peer review process (see below). Still,  82% of people  in the research community say there is no control in scientific publishing without it.

The Peer Review Process and the 4 Different Types of Reviews

When an author submits an idea or study for publication, the article must go through the formal peer-review process. Here’s a condensed version of how it works.

• The First Pass Review  A journal editor gets the submitted article and does a first-pass review in which they make sure the article follows that particular journal’s quality guidelines. Based on their findings, the editor either rejects the article or passes it along to the next phase of the process.
• The Peer Review  In this step, experts on the article’s subject peer review the article. They check for validity of the science and information contained therein before rejecting it, requesting revisions, or accepting the article.
• The Revision Process  If the peer reviewers request that the author revises the article, the author makes the required revisions. They then submit the article to the peer reviewers a second time, and the reviewers either reject it or approve the article for publication.

Depending on the journal to which the author submits, the standards for peer reviews vary. Yet, the majority of journals follow one of four broad types of peer reviews. Let’s explore each of them in depth below.

Single-Blind Reviews

85% of all peer reviews  are single-blind, making it the most common of the four types. In a single-blind review, the author doesn’t know the name of the peer reviewer(s).

This type of review allows peer reviewers to remain impartial. Here’s what we mean: the author can’t influence the reviewer during the peer review process if they don’t know the name of the reviewer(s).

However, this benefit does come with a couple of criticisms.

First of all, single-blind reviews don’t protect the identity of the authors. There have been cases of peer reviewers purposefully delaying publication so he or she can publish their research first. Another con is that reviewers have been known to use their anonymity to be overly-critical or unnecessarily harsh with their review.

For these reasons, some publications prefer to deploy a double-blind peer-review process.

Double-Blind Reviews

In a double-blind review, both the author of the publication and the peer reviewer(s) are anonymous. That means the author doesn’t know who the peer reviewers are, and the reviewer doesn’t know who authored the research.

This type of review process fixes many of the problems with single-blind reviews, including:

• Double-Blind Reviews Protect Authors  The author’s relationship with the reviewer won’t influence the peer reviewer’s critiques. This also removes issues of bias regarding age, gender, and nationality.
• Double-Blind Reviews Remove Bias Toward Certain Authors  An author’s popularity (or lack thereof) in the space won’t influence the reviewer’s critique. This allows reviewers to evaluate a work based on the research done, not on the author’s previous track record.

Keep in mind that double-blind reviews aren’t fault-free. There’s no way to 100% guarantee author anonymity. Even with a double-blind process, reviewers may identify an author by his or her writing style or subject matter.

Double-blind and single-blind reviews also fail to protect authors from editor bias. Seeing as editors have an ultimate say over where, when, and how an article is published in a scholarly journal, this is a major concern. Luckily, some journals use triple-blind reviews to address this worry.

Triple-Blind Reviews

Triple-blind review processes are relatively uncommon, but they offer the most protection to authors. How so? These peer reviews anonymize the submitting author, the peer reviewer(s), and the journal editor(s).

In addition to harnessing the benefits of single- and double-blind peer reviews, triple-blind reviews remove editor bias toward (or away from) a particular submitting author.

At this point, you may be thinking: if triple-blind reviews are so great, why don’t more journals use them?

The process of maintaining total author anonymity is subject to the same risks as in double-blind reviews. Triple-blind reviews are also highly complex, making it pricier and more time-consuming.

You may think the solution to the issues that come along with blind reviews is to tighten things up even further. The scientific community would disagree. Instead of pushing for more anonymity, today’s researchers want to make the process more transparent.

Open Reviews

In an attempt to provide more transparency in  the research cycle , journals have come up with a catch-all term to describe a new kind of peer-review process: open reviews.

Open reviews vary by journal. Yet, they all have the main goal of transparency in common. This type of review process aims to do so by making author, reviewer, and editor identities known before, during, and after the peer-review process.

Other identifying information that may be included in an open review includes:

• Other peer reviews of the article
• Responses from the author(s) and/or the editor(s) along with other reviews of the article
• Quick publication of an article alongside a discussion forum for the community to comment

Why are more and more journals turning to open reviews? They believe open reviews remove the problem with hateful anonymous reviewers. Open reviews, they say, also allow for more honest peer reviews.

Of course, many disagree. The opposition considers open reviews as subject to  less honest  feedback.

Reviewers cite a fear of retribution or a tendency toward politeness as the top reasons for dishonest open reviews. One study even showed that  fewer peer reviewers  are willing to participate in open reviews as compared to blind ones.

While the community continues to debate the best type of peer review, you can make up your mind once and for all. We’ll help you out with a quick dive into the benefits and disadvantages of the peer review process as a whole.

The Benefits of Peer-Reviewed Research

We’ve already mentioned one major benefit of peer review: it prevents publication of “fake news” by putting new research through a rigorous process of evaluation. That’s not the only benefit of peer reviews, though.

Here are three more that most scientists would agree on.

Peer Review Provides Valuable Feedback for Authors

For most researchers, getting published is a make-it or break-it moment. Many a career has begun (and ended) with a single article appearing (or failing to appear) in a prestigious journal.

Yet, there are still those researchers who struggle to get published. Proponents of peer-reviewed research say that the valuable feedback given during the peer-review process helps those struggling authors.

Helps Journals Identify the Cream of the Crop Research for Publication

1.8 million academic articles  are published each year. Journal editors have a hard task, sorting through all the submissions they receive. To speed up the process, say peer-reviewed research supporters, journals need peer reviewers.

Peer Review is Well-Understood and Widely-Accepted in the Community

Even those in the scientific community who hate peer reviews can still agree that they understand their purpose. The peer-review process is straightforward and simple to grasp, making it easy to train new scientists and practitioners.

What’s more, the scientific community has relied on peer review for so long it would take something truly disruptive to replace the current model.

Critiques of the Peer Review Process

In addition to the pickier problems with the different types of peer reviews (see above), the community agrees that there are  big issues with peer review  in general.

Here are the top four critiques the community makes today.

The Process Takes Too Long

Even blind supporters of peer review agree that the process takes forever. This slows down the research process as a whole and prevents valuable findings from reaching practitioners and, ultimately, patients or other people in need.

Is Peer Review Really Effective at Detecting Errors?

For a process that validates other research efforts, you may find it ironic that the peer review process has never been tested.

That means we don’t know how effective peer reviewers are at catching errors in submissions. Many scientists in the community doubt that the process is effective in detecting errors at all.

Peer Reviewers and Journal Editors aren’t Open to New Ideas

One of the most controversial critiques of peer-reviewed research is that journals reject potentially novel and valuable ideas. Why is this? You could chalk it up to confirmation bias or elitism in the community, but the bottom line is peer review could be preventing advancements in science.

Peer Review Can’t Prevent the Publication of Low-Quality Research

Not all journals are created equal. While some deploy a vetting process stricter than most university graduate admissions boards, others are much laxer.

Some researchers say that lower-level journals are churning out too much bad science. And because of the way it works currently, the peer review process can’t do anything to stop this issue.

The Final Word on Peer Reviews

So, what is peer review in science? It’s a widely accepted way to validate academic research which has some fundamental defects and limitations. As criticisms add up, though, the community will search for a solution that can address the drawbacks of peer-reviewed research.

That’s where ARTIFACTS comes in.

Are you looking for a new way to share your findings with the scientific community? Learn more about  how the ARTIFACTS platform works  and get in touch with us today to try it out for free!

• All Categories:
• Citation Recognition
• Product News
• Research Process
• Scientific Research
• Uncategorized

• Open Access
• Manuscript Preparation
• Author Guidelines
• Editor Guidelines
• Reviewer Guidelines
• Corrections & Retraction
• Submit Manuscript

Peer Review

The peer review process undergoes scientific research papers to autonomous scrutiny by other capable scientific scholars before they are made publish on journal website. The peer review supports the editorconclusivethat the research article should be accepted, accept with major or minor changes in the manuscript, or declined. This process increases the quality of manuscript to be published. Peer reviewers require unknown, on the other hand they are now significant quantities of open peer review, and anywhere the observations are noticeable to students, researchers usually through the uniqueness of the peer referees revealed for instance.

Clinical peer review should be illustrious from the peer review that scientific journals use to appraise the qualities of a research manuscript, commencing the peer review procedure used to estimateresearch scholarshipsubmissions and moreover from the development by which medicalinstruction might be assessed.Peer review process is very common in scientific research papers this is known as clinical peer review. In spite ofdisapprovals, peer review is the individualextensivelyrecognizedtechnique for investigationendorsement.In double blind review processes mutually the referee and the author/writer are unspecified.

Expansions in health and medication are regularlyin the news captions and communalconversation. Now and thenresearchers are conveyedsuch as approximatelyincompatibleeffects. There is a methodknown as peer review that is practice by researchers/experts to choosewhether theinvestigationoutcomesought to be issued in a methodical journal. Avitalpart of Open Access is the durableconservancy of peer-reviewed academic journal manuscripts and research investigation papers.

remain acknowledged for journal publication illustrate the top exploration performs in a field.

We will assign the manuscript to reviewer, editorial board member/ eminent person in the respective field. Once we received reviewer comments from the reviewer we will send those reviewer comments to author of the manuscript and request for revised version. Once we get the revised version from author we will send the article to quality analyst to do the author proof. After completion of author proof we will send the final galley proof to author to confirm. Once they confirmed we will go to PDF & full text and finally available in online journal website.

Author Resources

Copyright © 2016 Scientific Literature. All Rights Reserved.

Design by Scientific Literature

• All Publications
• Priorities Magazine Spring 2018
• The Next Plague and How Science Will Stop It
• Priorities Magazine Winter 2018
• Priorities Magazine Fall 2017
• Little Black Book of Junk Science
• Priorities Magazine Winter 2017
• Should You Worry About Artificial Flavors Or Colors?
• Should You Worry About Artificial Sweeteners?
• Summer Health and Safety Tips
• How Toxic Terrorists Scare You With Science Terms
• Adult Immunization: The Need for Enhanced Utilization
• Should You Worry About Salt?
• Priorities Magazine Spring 2016
• IARC Diesel Exhaust & Lung Cancer: An Analysis
• Teflon and Human Health: Do the Charges Stick?
• Helping Smokers Quit: The Science Behind Tobacco Harm Reduction
• Irradiated Foods
• Foods Are Not Cigarettes: Why Tobacco Lawsuits Are Not a Model for Obesity Lawsuits
• The Prevention and Treatment of Osteoporosis: A Review
• Are "Low Dose" Health Effects of Chemicals Real?
• The Effects of Nicotine on Human Health
• Traditional Holiday Dinner Replete with Natural Carcinogens - Even Organic Thanksgiving Dinners
• A Primer On Dental Care: Quality and Quackery
• Nuclear Energy and Health And the Benefits of Low-Dose Radiation Hormesis
• Priorities in Caring for Your Children: A Primer for Parents
• Endocrine Disrupters: A Scientific Perspective
• Good Stories, Bad Science: A Guide for Journalists to the Health Claims of "Consumer Activist" Groups
• A Comparison of the Health Effects of Alcohol Consumption and Tobacco Use in America
• Moderate Alcohol Consumption and Health
• Irradiated Foods Fifth Edition
• Media/Contact
• Write For Us

How Scientific is ‘Peer-Reviewed’ Science?

Related articles.

"Peer review" of scientific articles before publication is often considered the "gold standard" of reliability, but its luster has become tarnished by greed – the desire of the research community to tap into research funds, the pressure on scientists to publish or perish, and publishers of scientific journals seeking to maximize profits. 

The expression, "there are three types of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics," is attributed to Benjamin Disraeli, the U.K.’s Prime Minster from 1874 to 1880. A century and a half later, improper manipulation of statistics is pervasive. It can do great damage when it corrupts the so-called “scientific literature” – the body of knowledge published in articles by researchers based on their experiments or studies, which is the foundation of science. When those flawed, published articles contain potentially important findings, they are widely reported in news outlets and social media.

A system has been developed to try to ensure that the research published in “peer-reviewed” journals – the gold standard -- is valid. The way it works is that researchers submit their article to the journal, and the editors then send the manuscript to unremunerated reviewers, or “peers,” in the research community, who anonymously offer an opinion on whether the article is of sufficiently high quality to be published.

There is a problem with this seemingly logical process, however: Far too often, it fails. Many articles that pass through it are methodologically flawed, contain fraudulently manipulated data or obviously implausible claims, and should not have been accepted. Sometimes the editors and reviewers are part of the deception. 

An egregious example came to light last Fall when a prominent publisher, Hindawi, an Egyptian subsidiary of a larger, multinational firm called John Wiley & Sons, announced that due to a major cheating scandal involving some of their editors and peer reviewers, they were withdrawing more than 500 papers en masse.  

Hindawi publishes 200 open-access, author-fee journals, 16 of which were involved. In September 2022, according to Retraction Watch , a publication that follows the retraction of scientific papers:

Hindawi’s research integrity team found several signs of manipulated peer reviews for the affected papers, including reviews that contained duplicated text, a few individuals who did a lot of reviews, reviewers who turned in their reviews extremely quickly, and misuse of databases that publishers use to vet potential reviewers.  Richard Bennett, vice president of researcher and publishing services for Hindawi, told us that the publisher suspects “coordinated peer review rings ” consisting of reviewers and editors working together to advance manuscripts through to publication. Some of the manuscripts appeared to come from paper mills, he said. 

The problem is not unique to Hindawi.  Retraction Watch continued:

Other publishers have announced large batches of retractions recently. Earlier this month, the Institute of Physics' IOP Publishing announced that it planned to retract nearly 500 articles likely from paper mills, and PLOS in August announced it would retract over 100 papers from its flagship journal over manipulated peer review. 

A 2021 article described the tribulations of a small cadre of scientific fraud hunters, or “data sleuths,” who reveal cheating in published papers. It is unclear how extensive such misconduct is, but there is certainly a lot that falls under the rubric of “ research misbehaviors” or Questionable Research Practices (QRPs). An important subset of these is outright cheating with statistics.

One kind of QRP employs a form of a statistical trick called Multiple Testing and Multiple Modeling, or MTMM. The Multiple Testing component involves asking a lot of questions using a large, complicated data set. For example, a standard nutrition study asks many people, a cohort, to record in Food Frequency Questionnaires , or FFQs, how much of certain things they ate. The investigators then follow the cohort over time and follow up by asking them whether they experience various health problems.

The number of foods in the FFQ might include 60 to several hundred, and the various health outcomes might include from dozens to fifty or more. With careful planning and powerful computers, many thousands of correlations are possible. A data dredge of predicates and outcomes is likely to come up with many statistical “correlations” that might seem persuasive after the researcher constructs a narrative, but are due purely to chance.

What is the “Modeling” aspect of MTMM? The data can be sliced and diced by age groups, gender, geography, etc. and is only limited by the researcher’s imagination and computing power. That provides innumerable possibilities for spurious correlations. For example, the 511 papers retracted by Hindawi were published in 2020, the same year that 7,740 papers that included the term “FFQ,” providing plenty of opportunities for Questionable Research Practices.         

Another technique of statistical sleight-of-hand used to get a desired – but not necessarily accurate – result is called “ p-hacking ”: It involves trying one statistical or data manipulation after another until you get a small enough p-value that qualifies as “statistical significance,” even though the finding is the result of chance, not a reflection of reality. P-hacking poses numerous questions but fails to correct for their number and is a way of fudging the analysis. It is not uncommon. Evolutionary biologist Dr. Megan Head and her colleagues found that p-hacking is common in almost every scientific field.

Thus, given widespread p-hacking and the recent retraction of hundreds of supposedly peer-reviewed papers, it is evident that peer review and editorial oversight do not ensure that articles in scientific publications represent reality instead of statistical chicanery. And the problem is increasing over time: In 2020, 7.3% of the people who replied to the American Physical Society survey said they had witnessed data falsification , up from 3.9% in 2003. And 12.5% of the 2020 respondents had felt pressured to break ethics rules, compared with 7.7% in 2003.

This is a significant problem for the scientific community because if published articles are unreliable, we do not really know what we think we know. 

The cause for all this cheating is simply greed -- the desire of the research community to tap into the huge reservoirs of research funds, the pressure on scientists to publish or perish, and publishers of scientific journals seeking to maximize profits. Many journal publishers thrive by obtaining fees from authors, which provides an incentive to accept even low-quality or frankly fraudulent research articles. At the same time, investigators are eager to pad their c.v.’s with large numbers of publications, whatever their quality.

Better oversight is needed. Government agencies and university officials charged with ensuring research integrity and scientific professional societies need to acknowledge the insidious fraud in the publication of scientific studies and take corrective actions.   

View the discussion thread.

By Henry I. Miller, MS, MD

Henry I. Miller, MS, MD, is the Glenn Swogger Distinguished Fellow at the American Council on Science and Health. His research focuses on public policy toward science, technology, and medicine, encompassing a number of areas, including pharmaceutical development, genetic engineering, models for regulatory reform, precision medicine, and the emergence of new viral diseases. Dr. Miller served for fifteen years at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in a number of posts, including as the founding director of the Office of Biotechnology.

Latest from Henry I. Miller, MS, MD :

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com.

https://www.wsj.com/science/whats-wrong-with-peer-review-e5d2d428

What’s Wrong With Peer Review?

A series of high-profile retractions has raised questions about the process used by scientific and medical journals to decide which studies are worthy of publication..

Listen to article

(6 minutes)

The latest in a series of high-profile retractions of research papers has people asking: What’s wrong with peer review?

Scientific and medical journals use the peer-review process to decide which studies are worthy of publication. But a string of questionable or allegedly fabricated research has made it into print. The problems were exposed only when outside researchers scrutinized the work and performed a job that many believe is the responsibility of the journals: They checked the data.

Copyright © 2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Copyright © 2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

New York Tech

The Role of a Peer Review Template in Improving Scientific Research

Posted: November 18, 2023 | Last updated: November 18, 2023

In the world of scientific research, peer review is a necessary process. This ensures the quality and integrity of published studies. It involves experts evaluating a study before it is accepted for publication.

The goal of peer review is to improve the quality of scientific research. This is by providing feedback and suggestions to authors. One way to enhance the effectiveness of peer review is by using a peer review template.

This article will explore the pivotal role of peer review templates.

The Importance of Templates in Peer Review

Peer review templates offer a standardized approach to evaluating research studies. This is crucial in maintaining the integrity of scientific research.

They guide reviewers and ensure that all critical aspects of a study are considered. This includes procedure, data analysis, and conclusions.

Templates also promote consistency among reviewers, allowing for more reliable and fair evaluations. This is especially important in fields where research findings can have significant implications. This includes medicine or environmental peer review in science.

How Templates Improve Research

Using a peer review template can make the process easier for reviewers. Here are some of the best benefits of using a peer review template.

Identify Potential Biases

Peer review templates often include questions or prompts. This helps reviewers identify potential biases in the study.

This can include conflicts of interest, funding sources, or sample selection methods. Reviewers can ensure that external factors do not skew the study’s findings.

Save Time and Effort

Reviewing a research study can be a time-consuming process. Peer review templates can help streamline the process.

This is by providing a clear structure and criteria to check. This saves time and effort for both reviewers and authors.

Provide Constructive Feedback

Peer review templates also include sections for reviewers. This provides comments and suggestions for scientific research improvement.

By following a template, reviewers can ensure that their feedback is organized. It is very helpful in refining the study. This can lead to higher-quality research being published.

Improve Study Quality

Peer review templates improve the quality of published studies. They encourage reviewers to consider all essential aspects of a study.

It provides valuable feedback for authors. This leads to more robust and reliable research findings.

Ensure All Critical Aspects Are Considered

Peer review templates cover all significant elements of a research study. This includes the background, methods, results, and conclusions.

This ensures that reviewers do not overlook any necessary information. It provides a comprehensive evaluation of the study.

Creating an Effective Peer Review Template

Creating an efficient peer review template is critical in promoting a well-structured process. When designing an effective peer review template, several factors should be considered:

Simplicity and Clarity

The template should be simple. This allows reviewers to understand what is expected of them.

The language should be clear, and the template layout should be logical. This starts from the general evaluation of the study towards more specific elements.

Flexibility

A template provides a structured approach for reviewing. It should also allow for flexibility to account for the unique aspects of each study.

This could include leaving space for more comments. It also will enable reviewers to deviate from the template if necessary.

Regular Updates

Peer review templates should be reviewed. It must be updated to reflect research methods and technological advancements. This ensures that the template remains relevant and effective in evaluating modern studies.

Relevance to the Study in Question

The template should be tailored to the specific research study being reviewed. This ensures that all relevant study aspects are evaluated. It provides more constructive feedback for authors.

Impact of Peer Review Templates

The use of peer review templates has been shown to impact the quality. It provides a consistent framework for evaluation.

Templates help ensure that important aspects of a study are not overlooked. It also makes the potential biases or flaws.

The structure of peer review templates also improves the efficiency of the process. This also leads to faster publication times. It provides more timely dissemination of significant research findings.

The positive influence of peer review templates is large and multifold. These templates act as a roadmap.

This guides reviewers through the often intricate research analysis process. This thereby minimizes the chances of evaluative oversight.

They also standardize the evaluative criteria. It ensures each study has the same rigorous standards. This helps increase scientific research’s reliability.

Evolution of Peer Review Templates

Peer review templates have evolved over the years. This is adapting to changes in research methods and technologies.

With online submission systems, templates can be more interactive and dynamic. This allows for a more efficient and effective peer review process .

There is a growing trend towards open peer review. This is where the study and the reviewer’s comments are made public.

This allows for more transparency and accountability in the peer review process. It promotes further improvements in enhancing research quality.

Overcoming Challenges of Peer Review Templates

While peer review templates have many benefits, their implementation may also have challenges. These can include resistance to change from traditional review methods. It also contains difficulties in creating a comprehensive template covering all essential aspects.

These challenges can be overcome with careful consideration and collaboration. The aim should always be to improve the quality of scientific research. Peer review templates are valuable in achieving this goal.

Resistance to change from traditional review methods is a common challenge. This can be mitigated by providing comprehensive training to reviewers and journal editors.

This showcases the benefits and efficiency of using peer-review templates. Regular feedback and updates to the template can help address any issues.

Using a Peer Review Template

Peer review templates are pivotal in elevating the quality of peer-reviewed studies. They provide a structured approach to evaluating research.

It promotes consistency among reviewers. It also improves the quality of scientific research.

The peer review template will continue to enhance scientific research. It will ensure the reliability of published studies. Researchers and reviewers need to recognize the value of peer review templates.

If you’d like to learn more about what we offer, please visit our website and read more.

This article is published by NYTech in collaboration with Syndication Cloud.

More for You

Mike Lindell Cheers Judge's 'Historic' Ruling as Vindication

A new COVID variant, HV.1, is now dominant. These are its most common symptoms

When should older drivers have to stop driving?

Peanuts by Charles Schulz

Watch: Penguins netminder scores historic empty-netter

A Russian official said soldiers are dying in large numbers, but he'll get in trouble if he doesn't send more to fight, leaked video shows

Trump-Appointed Judge Deals Blow to Republicans

Dangerous predators on the loose: Why this state plans to release dozens of wolves

Moms for Liberty reports over $2 million in revenue, with bulk of contributions from two donors

Balance of Nature ordered to stop sales of supplements after FDA lawsuits

My ex-husband paid the mortgage on our home for 20 years. Do I get half if he sells?

‘The bottom of the barrel is visible’: Inside the West’s scramble for more ammo

Bill Maher says Dems' last-minute San Fran clean-up for Xi is a sign that 'Trump is winning' in 2024

Russia Foils Major Ukraine Attack on Putin's Prized Possession

Rose Is Rose by Don Wimmer and Pat Brady

NBA says Hornets' LaMelo Ball must cover 'LF' tattoo, cites policy

Honda recalls nearly 250K vehicles because bearing can fail and cause engines to run poorly or stall

Haberman says this detail of Trump audio struck her

Why GOP senators frustrated by Tuberville blockade on military promotions may go against one of their own

COVID Map Shows Where Hospitalizations Have Risen Most

Help | Advanced Search

Computer Science > Computation and Language

Title: towards reasoning in large language models via multi-agent peer review collaboration.

Abstract: Large Language Models (LLMs) have shown remarkable capabilities in general natural language processing tasks but often fall short in complex reasoning tasks. Recent studies have explored human-like problem-solving strategies, such as self-correct, to push further the boundary of single-model reasoning ability. In this work, we let a single model "step outside the box" by engaging multiple models to correct each other. We introduce a multi-agent collaboration strategy that emulates the academic peer review process. Each agent independently constructs its own solution, provides reviews on the solutions of others, and assigns confidence levels to its reviews. Upon receiving peer reviews, agents revise their initial solutions. Extensive experiments on three different types of reasoning tasks show that our collaboration approach delivers superior accuracy across all ten datasets compared to existing methods. Further study demonstrates the effectiveness of integrating confidence in the reviews for math reasoning, and suggests a promising direction for human-mimicking multi-agent collaboration process.

Submission history

Access paper:.

• Download PDF
• Other Formats

References & Citations

• Google Scholar
• Semantic Scholar

BibTeX formatted citation

Bibliographic and Citation Tools

Code, data and media associated with this article, recommenders and search tools.

• Institution

arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators

arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website.

Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them.

Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs .

• Latest updates

Clinical Oncology 2023 Peer Review Trainees Chosen

Member benefits

The RCR and the Clinical Oncology editorial board are delighted to announce the following successfully applicants for the Clinical Oncology peer review training programme.

Clinical Oncology has developed a peer-review training programme that will enable these oncology trainees, under the supervision of the journal editors, to enhance their skills in reviewing and writing scientific papers.  

The programme offers trainees not only the chance to develop their academic writing and critical analysis skills. It also allows you the chance to help guest edit special issues of Clinical Oncology, develop new journal content, participate in editorial board meetings and participate in a journal publication workshop (September 2023). 

Clinical Oncology peer review trainees:

• Dr Amani Chowdhury – Current ST7 trainee, taking time out of programme to pursue a brachytherapy fellowship at Mount Vernon Cancer Centre, as well as an MD (Res) degree focusing on strategies to optimise delivery of radiotherapy in gynaecological malignancies.
• Dr Andrada Turcas – A radiation oncology resident at the Oncology Institute in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and a PhD candidate at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj-Napoca.
• Dr Be njamin Pickwell-Smith – A medical oncology specialist registrar in West Yorkshire, currently completing a PhD at Hull York Medical School focusing on the evaluation of socioeconomic inequalities in cancer diagnosis and treatment.
• Dr C. Will Bleaney – An NIHR academic clinical fellow and speiality registrar in clinical oncology at The Christie Hospital, Manchester.
• Dr Dana Shor – An ST7 clinical oncology specialist registrar in the East of England, and nearing completion of a Clinical Fellowship in radiation oncology in Toronto, Canada, specialising in CNS and  lung malignancies.
• Dr Daniel Hughes – A medical oncology trainee at University College London, currently completing an MSc in medical education and lecturing at the UCL Medical School.
• Dr Emily Renninson – An ST7 SpR in Bristol, Severn Deanery, having just passed her final FRCR exam.
• Dr Farasat Kazmi – An ST5 clinical oncology trainee in the East of England, having obtained an MSc in Nanomedicine.
• Dr Francesca Holt – Currently working with the ‘Benefits and Risks of Cancer Treatments' team at Oxfor d Population Health on projects aiming to estimate the benefits and risks of different types of adjuvant radiotherapy for early breast cancer, funded by an NIHR fellowship.
• Dr Jill Nicholson – Currently in her final year of training in radiation oncology and her research fellowship at St Luke’s Institute of Cancer Research and Trinity College, Dublin, which focuses on optimizing b reast cancer radiotherapy and incorporating artificial intelligence into treatment pathways. Jill is also pursuing a Master’s in medical education (Oncology) at the University of Dundee.
• Dr Joon Wee Ho – Focuses on CNS tumours, including brain tumours, meningioma and brain metastases, as well as breast cancer. Joon regularly teaches medical students, doctors and junior registrars.
• Dr Mary Denholm – A clinical oncology trainee in the East of England, holding a Cancer Research UK research training fellowship and undertaking a PhD at the University of Cambridge to examine the role of therapy-induced cellular senescence in non-small cell lung cancer.
• Dr Shefali Parikh – An ST5 clinical oncology trainee in the West Midlands, with both an OOPE as a leadership fellow and a PGDip in clinical education.