Reviewing and editing scientific papers part 1: The importance of peer review

Dear Steemians,

Being a reviewer of scientific papers in prestigious journals have allowed me to identify at least four categories that must be taken into account when publishing. I have classified these categories into: i) the importance of peer review, ii) how to develop your writing style, iii) effective presentation of images, and iv) the correct use of symbols and signs. To explain each one in detail, it is necessary to develop other subtopics, so I have decided to publish them in different posts.

This post is for helping all students, writers, professors, and researchers who with their scientific papers or theses contribute to the technological advances that benefit our society. I hope to contribute to the communities of @steemstem, @stem-espanol, @curie, @fundition, and @utopian-io. Please, take the goodness of this post to improve the quality of your publications.

Source: Image of bruce mars under public domain license of unsplash.

Part 1: The importance of peer reviewing

Peer review is the process by which other researchers systematically assess the quality of a research manuscript and make suggestions to the journal editor who finally decides to accept or reject it [1]. Paper quality depends mainly on the originality of the research work, the presentation of the manuscript, and the impact of the findings.

Why is it important to know the details of peer reviewing? One of the answers is, if you are going to publish your scientific manuscript in a journal, it will be evaluated according to the criteria of the publisher, that is, the article has to be approved in the peer review. Once we know under what criteria we are going to be evaluated, it will be easier to cover these points satisfactorily before submitting the manuscript.

In my experience, I've observed that most of the journal editors select their group of reviewers, being those who deliver on time the revisions of the assigned documents. It is likely that you have ever been asked for a list with at least three potential reviewers of your manuscript. However, these reviewers are rarely taken into account during the evaluation process.

Source: Image of StockSnap under public domain license of pixabay.

In some journals the manuscript review process is carried out blindly for authors or blindly for both authors and reviewers. It has been much debated whether the name of the reviewers has to be revealed or not [2]. The advantage of showing the name of the reviewers is to give them the credit they deserve for their effort and contribution in the preparation of a higher quality article. However, the main disadvantage of this point is interest conflicts which could be created and adversely affect collaborative relationships between researchers in the case of forceful rejection of a manuscript [3].

If you do not know who the reviewer is, and the reviewer does not know who the author is, you could revise the manuscript more objectivity. However, from my point of view, some points of the review would be lost, since I spend a little time to review the previous publications of the authors to verify if they have published on the subject or if they are improving their manuscripts. For example, several authors had published a manuscript on the design of a nickel-iron material (NiFe, low-cost metals) with the ability to dissociate water. Subsequently, these authors tried to publish a material based on platinum-iron (platinum is an expensive element) which had a lower efficiency than the NiFe material. When asking what was the reason for publishing this new material based on my observation, the authors did not respond again, and the article was rejected by the editor.

The role of the reviewers

As a reviewer, you have to demonstrate that you read and understood the research work. Which allows you to evaluate it thoroughly. The evaluation of scientific manuscripts must be objective, constructive, and systematic. In case of conflict of interest with any of the authors of the manuscript to be reviewed, avoid continuing with the review and notify to the editor in chief of the journal.

What do the reviewers evaluate in your scientific article?

1. The originality of the document.

2. The impact of the research work.

3. The management of the topic by the authors.

4. English writing and sentence structure.

5. The effective presentation of figures.

6. Confirm that the results support the conclusions.

7. Report if there is suspicion of plagiarism.

8. The use of updated references.

Source: Image of 3dman_eu under public domain license of pixabay.

In the final recommendation of a manuscript, the reviewers have the following options: accept it (when the manuscript does not require changes, the rarest option), minor revision (contains some errors that do not affect the findings or conclusions), major revision(contains errors) that require rewriting or re-interpreting results and probably perform more experiments), and reject it (when the conclusions are not based on the results or the experiments cannot be reproduced) [4].

The reviewers must be specific in their final recommendation about the work, that is, they have to make it clear if they recommend accepting or rejecting the manuscript. Therefore, do not send your suggestions and comments about the manuscript if you are not entirely sure of your final recommendation.

If the journal publishes a repeated article in which the same conclusions are reached as another, or there is a plagiarism of images or text, the responsibility is only for the authors [5]. In this case, the journal usually reports your behavior in Retraction Watch [6]. In this site, the misconduct of some researchers is reported to the public because their results are not reproducible or because they try to publish the same thing several times or they fabricate the results to publish scientific papers.

What are the benefits of being a peer reviewer in a scientific journal?

1. Stay updated on the research topic.

2. Encourage the obtaining of economic stimuli when your academic performance is evaluated.

3. Recognition of the journals editors.

4. Free access to specialized databases for a limited time.

5. Experience to write better (the most valuable).

Some recommendations for authors

Co-review: It is common for you to collaborate with other researchers or members of your research group (co-authors), right? What you should do is send it to each of them before submitting it to a journal to strengthen the section in which they have more experience with the manuscript. With this habit, you will receive the manuscript back with other points of view, which always helps at the time of writing.

English Writing: If your native language is not English, you should find a professional or native editor specialized in the area to improve your manuscript (as possible). Even native speakers of English make use of technical or scientific writers when publishing their manuscripts. This type of services can be found in publisher sites, at a high cost but it is worth it, because you are exchanging money for experiences.

Selecting the journal: The best way to choose a journal is according to the depth of the research carried out and within the scope of the journal. If the research is incomplete, you can choose a journal of short communications, but if it is already complete, it is recommended to send the manuscript to another type of journal. It is not recommended to choose a journal to publish only for its impact factor; it is better to select a journal by its characteristics such as type of readers, quality of published articles, and response time.

You do not have to change everything a reviewer asks: Sometimes, the authors do not agree with some suggestions from the reviewer. It is recommended to answer all the comments with a valid explanation of why you have not made those changes to your manuscript [7].

A manuscript or a thesis has a time limit to be delivered, if not it would be endless because things that can be improved will always appear. The more you learn and gain experience in the way you write, the greater the quality and impact of your document. When you realize that your document is unbeatable, it is when you know that you have to submit it to publication. Once your manuscript has been evaluated, you should review your document and reach the same point.

Finally, I recommend you review articles in detail from high-impact journals such as Science or Nature, or the leading magazines in your area of ​​knowledge, and you will notice that even in those articles you can find details that can be improved, which will allow you to see with another optics your manuscripts.

If you liked this post, support it with your upvote and share it to reach more people.

Kind regards,

@ritch

References:

[1] J. Matthias Starck. Scientific Peer Review: Guidelines for Informative Peer Review. Springer Spektrum, 2017.

[2] Eric M. Prager. The quest for transparent science Open peer review. Journal of Neuroscience Research 97, pag. 227. Editorial 2019.

[3] Francesca Lake. To blind or not to blind? The search for a perfect peer review methodology. Biotechniques 64, Number 4, Editorial 2018.

[4] Peer review: Notes for reviewers, authors and editors. J Biochem Mol Toxicol, 31: e21949 (2017).

[5] Thomas C. Südhof. Truth in science publishing: A personal perspective PLoS Biol 14(8):e1002547.

[6] http://retractionwatch.com/. Access on June 01, 2019.

[7] François P. Gabbaï, Paul J. Chirik. Dos and don’ts: Thoughts on how to respond to reviewer comments. Organometallics 37, page 2655 (2018).