I’m typing this on a glorious sunny Saturday; the chances are that a few of you are also working in the weekend sunshine, reviewing that manuscript for Cell, or Science, or The Journal of Virology, or perhaps even Nature Medicine.
Unlike your counterparts in other professions, however, you’ll be giving your expert advice for free. In our August editorial, we asked what motivates reviewers to spend large portions of their valuable time critiquing other people’s work. It’s a topic close to our hearts. The number of journals is increasing steadily, and scientists simply do not have the time to review every manuscript they are asked to look at.
What makes you decide which papers to review, and for which journals? Which factors are paramount; is it purely the potential importance of the paper that grabs your interest, its relevance to your specific area of research, or does the journal itself weigh into your decision? And if the latter, what are the factors that make you review for particular journals?
Are there any steps that we can take to encourage you to review for us? At Nature Medicine we recently started sending feedback to our reviewers (the other reviewer reports plus an indication of our decision). Are there any other incentives that might predispose you towards one journal or another?
As we discussed in our editorial, good reviewers for our journal know what is required of a Nature Medicine paper. They are fair, objective and can judge the suitability of an advance for a broad vs. specialised readership. We are lucky to have a large pool of trusted experts upon whom we rely. But we are keen to involve less established principal investigators in the reviewing process. This can benefit both sides; the journal gains exposure to the diversity of ideas in a particular field, and the newer investigators, by receiving reviewer feedback, can gauge what their community expects of a paper in a high-profile journal. So please do recommend your colleagues if you must decline a request to review.
On a closely related topic, good reviewers don’t materialize automatically. Can we as a journal participate in the training process? And if so how? Please do comment and tell us your thoughts.
And now that I’ve finished this, I’m off to get an ice-cream. I hope that you too have nearly finished with that paper you’re reviewing and you can get out and enjoy the sunshine while it lasts…
Uploaded on behalf of Clare Thomas, Senior Editor, Nature Medicine
I have just read the editorial “Why review?”. I greatly applaud Nature Medicine for making the move to automatically give reviewer feedback (i.e., a reviewer gets to see other reviewers’ reports plus editorial decisions on a manuscript). As a junior reviewer, I am still amazed that this is not common practice amongst many medium- to high-impact journals. Although senior reviewers may not care much for the comments of their fellow reviewers, I think that this is very helpful to junior reviewers such as myself. What more can be done? For one, journals editors should, on occasion, take the initiative to contact somewhat more junior investigators with a request for review. Senior investigators too often only pass on manuscripts which they do not feel like reviewing
because the manuscript is badly written or does not seem interesting; not because the reviewer does not have time to review the manuscriptrather than manuscripts that are highly interesting and may actually be a joy to review. Second, editors could play a greater role in training more junior reviewers by commenting on submitted reviews.What a gem!! Ralph Pantophlet has struck the proverbial “nail on its head”! I echo his sentiments. What is even more frustrating is senior PIs requesting their juniors to review manuscripts and NOT passing on the credit. I commend Nature Medicine on providing reviewer feedback and strongly urge the Editors to “build” good reviewers for the future by recruiting junior investigators and “coaching” them to a certain extent as indicated by Dr. Pantophlet. Nature Medicine subscribes to this by providing other reviewers reports – the smart “junior” will/should be greatly enlightened by this feedback.
One simple way to identify a good reviewer is to find those scientis, irrespective of position/experiance length, whose papers in high quality journals were accepted with least/no revisions. This will indicate the ability of the said scientists to perform more appropriately complete investigation of contemporary relevance as well as represent the same in a most desirable fashion.
There are several reasons for accepting to review articles for good journals, the major one among them being to keep you in loop of the current advancement in the field. As true for any concepts, there are always atleast two or more opinions and people from one group of thought always try to antagonise the others (although this is scientifically unethical, in practicality its true to 100%), i personally belive this is one of the major factor which drives reviewers to spend their valuable time for the reviewing process. Although such biased criticality is good in one sense in bringing out good science, but may be a drawback esp thesedays with may journals in line with good IFs. Under such situations the Editors must adopt a responsible role in judging on the acceptibility of the article.
I have just read the editorial "Why review?” I’m a typically “too busy” reviewer and I have to set-on alarms in my computer in order to not overpass the deadlines for revision (I don’t like to wait for the Journal’s answers more time that necessary). I receive more reviewing request that I’m able to do with honesty and care. What I do? What is suggested in the editorial: to recommend other people those are expert in the topic. Most times I try to recommend my younger collaborators. Usually I also revise his/her comments of the manuscript as another aspect of our Lab meetings, in my work of contributing to his/her training as scientists, and thus, as reviewers. What makes me decide which papers to review, and for which journals? For me is a mixture of several factors, including the potential importance of the paper, its relevance to my specific area of research, and also the journal itself (I “love” several journals and I feel less comfortable with others). Most of the Journal I review for, use the policy of giving reviewer feedback (i.e., I receive the other reviewers’ reports plus editorial decisions of the manuscripts I have reviewed, and, if the author is allowed to resubmit the manuscript, the answer of the authors to me and to the other reviewers). I think this is the way as I have learned to review manuscripts. However, I have been also aided for the policy of several journals of sending an extensive questionnaire covering all the important aspects of a manuscript for this specific journal. I think that elaborating this kind of questionnaires is a way for the journal to participate in the training process.
I agree that a good way to keep good reviewers is interacting with them; But, I think is more important to keep science away from the irrational, never ending hungry for material goods, that rides the world. Scientists, as proffesionals of the reason, must be the example. A true scientist, as result of his labor, has enough for a comfortable life, without luxuries or fame, is not engaged in little wars against those who think different, does not worries too much about credits, and understands that when reviewing scientific material, besides being an honor to be chosen for that, the main benefited in the process is himself, just for the kowledge, and even with the so called “bad articles” where he can find something interesting anyway.
Here’s two ideas related to the peer-review process that you may wish to entertain:
1) Considering the fact that places like Wikipedia have got widespread acceptance, the odd screw-up notwithstanding, I suspect that one could envision some sort of Nature “stamp of approval” of some of the items published in Wikipedia-like places. You would have somebody check the quality and accuracy of the contribution and, if it’s up to snuff, you could stamp it as “Approved by Nature”. If you find an effective way to do this, then you could do what Nature does best — filtering — in the context of the Web 2.0.
2) Nature already has sites like Dissect Medicine. This site, and others like discover8.net, are supposed to let people vote to recommend whatever scientific info they read. For websites devoted to science, this hasn’t quite worked out for several reasons, one of which is that very few people actually vote in these sites, and a low number of voters is inherently unreliable. Research from, say, betting websites shows that large numbers of “voters” can be incredibly effective in predicting outcomes. So, if you give people very precise criteria on which to vote (for example: novelty, degree of conceptual advance, technical rigor), it’s very possible that a large number of voters could do the filtering for you, as the mob would be likely to spot the truly significant contributions. This is somewhat related to what Faculty of 1000 has tried to do, but not very successfully. Of course, the problem continues to be how to attract large numbers of people to be a part of these sites. Good luck with that!
I have reviewed two papers this week. Each one took me most of a working day. Although I feel that I benefit from being a reviewer (staying in the loop, keeping up the quality of my field, raising my reputation with the editors), I think it might be useful to have a tangible method of recognition for reviewing. Perhaps journals could, without compromising reviewer confidentiality, notify a data base like NIH commons or ISI each time a person does a review. Then, the reviewer would have a concrete record of his or her work. As it is, reviewers not only do not get paid, they do not get much in the way of other recognition either.
The need for qualified peer reviewers for biomedical journals has never been greater. According to Humphreys (1994) between 1966 and 1985, the number of journals and articles indexed by the National Library of Medicine increased by 30% and 73%, respectively. Sustained growth of biomedical literature and the staggering increase in drug research and development support the need for health professionals to take an active role in reviewing manuscripts submitted for publication. Unfortunately, few formal training programs exist for those young investigators who are interested in developing their skills in this process. As with many aspects of clinical medicine, the adage “see one, do one, teach one” often applies to peer review. Most of the reasons that motivate me as a reviewer are already mentioned by others. I have to confess I was inspired by some of the authors, especially, I wouldn’t add anything more than what Gildardo Flores already posted.
Reviewing paper is both a privilege and responsibility. Most reviews take more time than necessary to prepare a useful and critical review. Clearly, it is a service to the journal, the authors, to science at large, and to the reviewer because the reviewer becomes privy to the latest in cutting-edge research. Review is the heart and soul of scientific publishing. Editors rely on reviewers to assess quality and to determine which of the many manuscripts competing for space will be published. Therefore, the most important reward for you as a reviewer is your contribution to the quality of published science. The responsibilities of a reviewer can be an honest, critical assessment of the research, maintaining confidentiality about the existence of the manuscript,avoid, or disclose, any conflicts of interest,accept manuscripts for review only in his/her areas of expertise,agreed to review only those manuscripts that can be completed on time, unpleasant responsibility of reporting suspected duplicate publication, fraud,or ethical concerns in the research being reported,write reviews in a collegial and constructive manner.
In my eyes reviewing is a win-win-situation, because a reviewer analyzes a paper more sophisticated and has the beeline to the author. This privilege of further enquiry has an inestimable value. That´s exactly what motivates me. As long as there are people interested in advance and have fun with complexity there will be authors and reviewers and your question remains rhetorical.
is the heart and soul of scientific publishing. Editors rely on reviewers to assess quality and to determine which of the many manuscripts competing for space will be published. Therefore, the most important reward for you as a reviewer is your contribution to the quality of published science
In my eyes reviewing is a win-win-situation, because a reviewer analyzes a paper more sophisticated and has the beeline to the author. This privilege of further enquiry has an inestimable value.