In order to celebrate Peer Review Week and recognize the contributions and importance of peer review, Technica Editorial has collected comments from authors, editors and reviewers about the importance of the process. Here are just a few comments about peer review’s integral role in science publishing:
“Peer review is critical to the work. None of us can be specialists in all the details of science, but by having the input of a number of reviewers with appropriate backgrounds, we improve the quality of published work. A number of years ago, when I was just starting, a student and I were on the fence about an experiment. It would require a great deal of detailed characterization, and we weren’t sure if it would yield anything. We decided to submit it, and one of the reviewers asked for the experiment. When the student did the work, it yielded new insights. Reviewers not only vet work, but they may help to indirectly guide young scientists.”
“Peer review is one of the very few activities available where one can continuously participate as a student and a teacher simultaneously while remaining completely anonymous. It happens to also be a process where one can go through a spectrum of emotions and always emerge with some amount of new knowledge.”
“In the Chemistry domain, the explosion of the number of journals and the number of publications (driven in part by global forces and impact factor parameters) place a huge burden on the reviewer community. It becomes increasingly more difficult to get meaningful, critical reviews of manuscript content beyond grammatical corrections and addition of citations.”
“Peer review is a cornerstone of scientific publication. Once a manuscript has been submitted to a journal, we turn to experts in the field who, at no charge, bring their skills to bear in order to assess the overall quality and importance of a given manuscript. Authors may not always like or agree with what the reviewers have to say about their work but the importance of peer review for filtering out weak papers, and making good papers better, cannot be overstated.”
“Peer review is an essential part of feedback between an individual researcher and its scientific community. Since in fundamental science there is often no immediate societal impact, a fair and judicious review process of high standard is important to provide a perspective on the work of individuals and to identify potentially promising research directions and coordinate the community.”
“Peer review remains the basis of scientific publishing. With the acceleration in speed and increase in numbers of publications I have concern that the number of scientists that feel morally obliged to pay back to the scientitic community by reviewing at least three times as many papers as they submit is gradually declining. We need to foster awareness of this important process and appeal to researchers that peer review is not just a burden but a way to learn.”
“Peer-review is the foundation of what we call Science – No peer-review, no Science, no benefits or joys of Science. Reviewers invest their time and talent in closely evaluating and commenting on scientific works in progress, anonymously, without recognition, because they believe in the cause. THANK YOU to all the reviewers out there, for maintaining rigor and value in our scientific process.”
