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Guidelines to help ensure your peer review is most effective

Understanding the Best Practices of a Peer Reviewer

By Alex Johnson on Sep 15, 2017
To accept or to reject? Either way, the final decision in determining whether a manuscript is accepted or rejected is not nearly as important as the Peer Review process as a whole. IGI Global holds peer review in the highest regard and recognizes the important role peer review fulfills in continuing scientific quality. Each of our publications are required to undergo a double-blind peer review process to ensure each submitted manuscript maintains its integrity while still advancing current research in its field.

However, at the end of the day, the peer review process is only as effective as the reviewers taking their time and effort to do the actual reviewing. Individuals appointed as reviewers are performing an important and valuable job by assuring that a manuscript is being published with integrity and accuracy. It is for this reason that we have included what we found to be the best practices for reviewers when conducting a peer review on any manuscript.

So what exactly is expected from a peer reviewer?

Person_Holding_Checklist, Guidelines
First off, choosing to review is a serious obligation and major commitment that takes a great deal of time. As in most cases, it is in everyone’s best interest to complete a review as quickly as possible but due to how time and labor intensive each review can be, it is generally expected to take anywhere from three to four months to go through the entire process. Some projects may be particularly long or complex and as such the deadlines are adjusted accordingly.

It is important for a reviewer to meet the editor’s deadlines for submitting reports with the understanding that if the reviewer does not believe he will be able to complete the work in a timely fashion, then he will not accept the responsibility in the first place. Naturally, deadlines may not be met and it is crucial that the reviewer always be transparent in this circumstance and communicate his concerns with the editor.

Similarly, reviewers should notify the editor should they become aware of any conflicts of interests, real or potential, and should preclude themselves from review if they feel unable, for any reason, to provide an honest and unbiased assessment of the body of work.

Once a reviewer decides to review a manuscript the evaluation begins.

In order to conduct an objective and constructive evaluation, reviewers must stay current and up-to-date in their area of expertise, while also remaining neutral, a task that may seem easy but can become difficult when the conclusions or research in the manuscript contradicts their personal views. Ultimately, it is the reviewer’s duty to ensure that the conclusions presented are sensible and consistent and can be drawn from the supporting ideas discussed in the paper.

Their feedback must be polite, keeping in mind the overall goal of helping to improve the quality of the work to create a more rigorous body of research. This is accomplished by an analysis of the manuscript’s strengths and weaknesses, suggestions on how to make it more complete, relevant, and readable, as well as specific questions for the authors to address. The feedback that the reviewer generates should always have some call for action for the author with specific references or examples from the paper under review.

Overall, the peer review process is extremely indispensable, especially to scholars and researchers, when it comes to progressing the system as a whole. It is because of this mechanism that most manuscripts published to this day, are revered and are able to be publicly recognized and circulated around the world. Though some may challenge the current peer review process or feel that it needs to be enhanced, it is undoubtedly a step in the right direction when it comes to the furthering the advancement of scientific discussion and scholarly communication.

IGI Global is proud to celebrate Peer Review Week 2017, which will provide publishers around the world with a platform to discuss the importance of having a credible peer review process. For additional information on IGI Global’s Peer Review Policy, please click here You can join the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #PeerRevWk17 and #TransparencyinReview.
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