Who are the peer reviewers and how much do they review?

Article Abstract:

Peer review is a step in the process by which medical and scientific journals evaluate manuscripts that have been submitted to them for publication. Editors of these journals send submissions out to experts in the respective topic areas; these experts, or peer reviewers, attempt to evaluate the importance, validity, and accuracy of the research papers and report back to the journal editors. The reviewers are considered peers of the authors of the articles, because in most cases they have done research in the same specialized area. In recent years, the peer review system has been criticized for lacking objectivity and fairness in the selection of articles to be published. Critics have claimed that the journals are biased in their selection of reviewers, sending manuscripts only to those individuals who share the opinions of the inner group and who reject alternative viewpoints. A survey was conducted to document the amount of peer reviewing being performed by individuals who review for the American Journal of Public Health. Of the 276 reviewers, 96 percent responded to the survey. These scientists also reviewed for other journals, for an average of 3.6 journals each. The average time spent reviewing one article was 2.4 hours, but reviewing time varied widely and was greater for those who reviewed fewer manuscripts. Peer review is performed on a voluntary basis, and a substantial time commitment was made by the reviewers (26.8 hours annually per reviewer for all journals). Most of the reviewers had publications themselves which had been cited by other authors in the year studied. Thus as expected, it did appear that the journals considered the publication record of scientists in selecting their reviewers. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

Economic aspects

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What do peer reviewers do?

Article Abstract:

Scientific and medical journal editors send manuscripts they are considering for publication out to experts who evaluate the manuscripts and report back to the editors. The experts, or peer reviewers, play an important role in the process of selecting research articles for publication because editors typically rely heavily on their opinions. Considering how important peer review, also know as refereeing, is to the scientific community, it is surprising how little research has been done to investigate the process itself. A survey was performed over a nine-month period to investigate what peer reviewers do, in terms of their refereeing work load. Individual scientists and clinicians who refereed for the British Medical Journal received questionnaires; of 343 referees, 301 returned the forms. Most the referees were male and worked in an academic environment; 146 were editors or worked on editorial boards. The average referee reviewed for five different journals and received six to eight manuscripts in the nine months. Most of the submissions reviewed were in the individual's specialty. The average time referees spent reviewing one manuscript was under two hours, which was less than expected. Two subsamples of referees were pediatricians and psychiatrists; it had been hypothesized that their reviewing practices would be different, but this was not the case. Psychiatrists did, however, review more manuscripts for general medical journals than pediatricians. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

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Quotational and reference accuracy in surgical journals: a continuing peer review problem

Article Abstract:

Peer review is an important aspect of the way in which medical journals evaluate manuscripts submitted for publication. Journal editors send the submissions out to experts in the topic area involved; the experts, or peer reviewers, read the manuscript and recommend that it be accepted, revised, or rejected. One aspect of preparing a manuscript is checking that all quotations and references are correct; authors are usually considered to be responsible for doing this. But studies have found that citations in published articles are often incorrect. A survey was conducted using one issue each of three surgical journals; for each issue 50 references were selected at random and checked for accuracy. Out of the total group of 150 references checked, 78 had no errors, making the overall error rate 48 percent. Thirteen major and 41 minor citation errors were found and 37 major errors were noted in quotations. The three journals had similar error rates. These findings suggest that authors of research articles fail to check their references and do not even read through them for obvious mistakes. It also appears that peer reviewers do not check references in the manuscripts they evaluate. Since authors cannot be relied upon to maintain accuracy in these areas, peer review of citations and quotations should be increased. These issues require further attention because at this time, the role of reviewers in this area is completely undefined. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

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