Be thoroughĮditors should review all of the manuscripts they oversee. If you do not have the time or expertise to manage a particular manuscript, let someone take your place. Delays by the editor in securing reviewers and making a decision undermine efforts made by reviewers to be responsible and prompt. Be prompt: Do not procrastinateĮditors must oversee a timely review process. The last 5 items are specific to editors. The first 5 items in this section are similar to the 5 items in How to Review Manuscripts. Scientific integrity should be upheld by scientists throughout the scientific process, not just when they are conducting their research. Unnecessary criticism and personal attacks can be especially damaging to graduate students and early-career scientists. Journal instructions typically remind reviewers to be professional and constructive in their comments and language. Cases of explicit biases can result in acceptance of otherwise unacceptable manuscripts, which is both unfair and immoral. We should not allow them to determine whether we judge a manuscript acceptable for publication we have an obligation to decline review assignments if we know we have a positive or negative bias. We all have biases, some explicit, some implicit. Responsible reviewers read the entire manuscript, including any supporting information, with a critical eye and make their impartial, appropriate judgment on that basis. The resulting recommendation may be to accept a manuscript with very bad science or to reject one with very good science that does not promote itself well enough. It is often clear that reviewers did not read the entire manuscript, as revealed by their minimal comments. If the topic of the manuscript lies outside your expertise, decline the invitation and notify the editor immediately. However, preset answers to preset questions cannot and should not replace a thoughtful review, which improves the manuscript and provides the editor with a sound basis for making a decision. Some journals ask reviewers to supplement their comments by answering a series of scoring questions to address the problem of minimalist reviews. Be thoroughĪlmost as bad as not completing a review is submitting a minimalist review-a recommendation to accept or reject with minimal comments or no justification. If this situation results in an insufficient number of reviewers, the editor will have to invite new reviewers, greatly delaying a decision on the manuscript. A real problem arises from those reviewers who accept the invitation but then do not complete the review. After a reviewer agrees to review, the editor should be alerted as soon as possible if any unforeseen circumstances arise that could lead to an extension being granted or even preclude the completion of a review. Your delayed response lengthens the review process unnecessarily. If you cannot or will not review a manuscript, let the editor know right away. It is unfortunately far too common for editors to invite reviewers, sometimes even colleagues, and receive no response. How to Review Manuscripts Be prompt: Do not procrastinate My basic message is “Be virtuous and serve science well.” Accordingly, here is my advice to reviewers and editors who are asked to read and judge manuscripts submitted to any peer-reviewed scientific journal. My goal in writing this editorial is to impart the lessons I have learned. My experience of nearly 40 years as an author, reviewer, and editor has taught me a lot about the responsibilities and pitfalls of serving as a reviewer or editor. It also takes putting one's personal biases aside, to offer fair and impartial opinions of someone else's hard work, an ethos that unfortunately is not always observed. Doing such a thorough job, however, takes dedicated time-something that most professionals do not have in abundance but that many willingly contribute. Ideally, reviewers and editors recommend rejection or acceptance of manuscripts based on detailed, constructive comments and suggestions that will improve manuscripts prior to publication. Peer review provides the backbone of the publication process but has long been the focus of criticism improvements have been recommended in all disciplines (e.g., Stehbens 1996 Smith 2006 Campbell 2014 Nature 2016). Publishing is central to the scientific process.
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