Peer review and editorial decision making at journals

The peer review process is essentially a quality control mechanism by which experts evaluate scholarly works and ensure the high quality of published science.

However, peer reviewers do not make the decision to accept or reject papers. At the most, they recommend a decision.

At peer-reviewed journals, decision-making authority rests solely with journal editors or the journal’s editorial board.1

Peer review and editorial decisionmaking at journals

What is peer review?

Author submits manuscript

Journal editor screens manuscript

Manuscript is peer reviewed

Journal editor/editorial board decides whether to publish

Author is informed of decision

Some manuscripts are rejected before peer review

YES NO

Peer review and editorial decisionmaking at journals

Journal decision-making process

Initial screening

Approximately 3 million manuscripts are submitted to journals every year.1 Given the large volume of manuscript submissions, more and more journals follow a policy of screening papers before sending them for full peer review. During the initial screening, journal editors mainly check the following:

Does the manuscript fit the journal’s scope and aimand will it be of interest to the readership?

Is the manuscript of minimum acceptable quality? Is the content and writing good enough for reviewing?

Is the manuscript compliant with the journal’sinstructions for authors?

Peer review and editorial decisionmaking at journals

Benefits of initial screening

1. If the manuscript clearly lies outside the scope of the journal, then a rapid rejection allows the author to quickly find and submit their manuscript to another journal.

2. Initial screening helps save the peer reviewers’ time and effort evaluating and giving feedback for manuscripts that do not match a journal’s publication standards.

Peer review and editorial decisionmaking at journals

Get your cover letter rightOne of the first items that journal editors look at is the cover letter to see if the study is interesting enough. So it is imperative that you craft a well-written cover letter that highlights the significance and strength of your research as well as provides a good reason why the manuscript is a good fit for the journal.

Quick tip

6

Did you know ?

Journal editors reject anywhere between 6% to 60% of submitted manuscripts at the initial screening stage.2

One study found that on an average, 21% of submissions are rejected during the initial review by journal editors across disciplines.3

Peer review and editorial decisionmaking at journals

Who are peer reviewers?

• Peer reviewers are ideally experts in their field. Generally, a minimum of 2 peer reviewers (up to 6) are chosen for the peer review.

• Journals usually build a pool of peer reviewers that have a good track record of producing high quality reviews. Or they may scan the bibliography to identify potential reviewers or contact researchersthey met at conferences and seminars.1

• Many journals will first ask potential reviewers whetherthey are willing to review the manuscript before assigningthem as reviewers.

Peer review and editorial decisionmaking at journals

Some journals ask authors to recommend preferred and non-preferred reviewers. This saves the journal time in looking for reviewers. Furthermore, studies have found that author-recommended peer reviewers tend to recommend acceptance more often than journal-recommended reviewers.4,5

Editors have to be careful to select reviewers who have sufficient subject matter expertise to do justice to the manuscript. Therefore, highly technical papers or papers from niche subject areas may take longer to review.

COMMON TYPES OF PEER REVIEW

Reviewer name

revealed

Author name

revealed

Single blind

Double blind

Open peer review

The peer review is completed once all the reviewers send the journal a detailed report with their comments and recommendation on the manuscript. Typically, journals ask reviewers to complete their reviews within 3-4 weeks.6 However, journals cannot enforce the deadline, so it can be hard to predict how long the peer review process will take.6

Peer review and editorial decisionmaking at journals

How peer reviewers are selected

Final decision

The journal editor or editorial board considers the feedback provided by the peer reviewers and arrives at one of the following decisions:

Peer review and editorial decisionmaking at journals

Decision What it means

Accept without any changes

Acceptance: the journal will publish the paper in its original form

Accept with minor revisions

Acceptance: the journal will publish the paper and asks the author to make small corrections

Accept after major revisions

Conditional acceptance: the journal will publish the paper provided the authors make the changes suggested by the reviewers and/or editors

Revise and resubmit

Conditional rejection: the journal is willing to reconsider the paper in another round of decision making after the authors make major changes

Reject the paper Outright rejection: the journal will not publish the paper or reconsider it even if the authors make major revisions

Final decisionThe first decision (accept without any changes) is rare.

The second decision (accept with minor revisions) is typically the best outcome authors should hope for.

Once a journal rejects a paper outright, authorsare well advised not to resubmit to the same journal.

If the journal wanted to reconsider the paper, they would have issued a conditional rejection.

An outright rejection means that the journal thinks the paper will not meet its publication standards or interests even after heavy revisions.

Peer review and editorial decisionmaking at journals

Editor Speak

In general, I classify manuscripts into three groups: 1) excellent-quality work that makes a contribution, 2) satisfactory-quality work that may

make a contribution, and 3) poor-quality work that makes no contribution. Categories 1 and 3 are dealt with quickly, with the majority of manuscripts in category 2. This group of manuscripts takes time and

reflection before a decision can be made.7

- A former journal editor

Peer review and editorial decisionmaking at journals

Do peer reviewers and editors always agree on what’s worthy of publication?

Editors’ decision-making policies vary: some reject when even one peerreviewer recommends rejection, some when the majority recommendrejection, and some only when all reviewers recommend rejection.2

It is common for peer reviewers to give conflictingfeedback on the same manuscript.8,9 One journaleditorial went as far as to say “Unanimity betweenreviewers is rare.”10

In cases of conflicting feedback, the journal editor may choose to send the paper to a third reviewer before arriving at a decision, and the author may have to wait longer for the peer review process to be completed.

Peer review and editorial decisionmaking at journals

2

Do peer reviewers and editors always agree on what’s worthy of publication?

In reality, reviewers tend to recommend acceptance more often than rejection.10 However, journal editors reject many papers that peer reviewers actually recommended for publication,with their decisions based on their own opinions ofthe papers’ publication worthiness.

The role of peer review is considered to be helping authors improve their manuscripts rather than deciding whether they should be published, which is the journal editor’s job.

Peer review and editorial decisionmaking at journals

Journal Speak

The primary purpose of the review is to provide the editors with the information needed to reach a decision. The review should also instruct the authors on how they can strengthen

their paper to the point where it may be acceptable.11

- Nature

Peer review and editorial decisionmaking at journals

Conclusion

Because of a large number of submissions, top-tier journals are often forced to reject even high quality manuscripts for various reasons like lack of fit with the journal’s editorial focus.2

While reviewers and editors easily agree on what is clearly not acceptable for publication, deciding what is worthy of publication is a tougher challenge.12

Finally, journal editors make decisions to accept or reject papers based on their opinion of the papers’ publication worthiness and reviewers’ comments.10

Peer review and editorial decisionmaking at journals

REFERENCES

1. House of Commons Science and Technology Committee (2011). Peer review in scientific publications Vol 1. House of Commons: London, UK.

2. Schultz DM (2010). Rejection rates for journals publishing in the atmospheric sciences. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 91(2): 231-243. doi: 10.1175/2009BAMS2908.1.]

3. Thomson Reuters (2011). Increasing the quality and timeliness of peer review: A report for scholarly publishers [white paper]. Available at: http://scholarone.com/media/pdf/peerreviewwhitepaper.pdf

4. Hutchings A (2006). Differences in review quality and recommendations for publication between peer reviewers suggested by authors or by editors. JAMA, 295(3): 314-317.

5. Wager E, Parkin EC, Tamber PS (2006). Are reviewers suggested by authors as good as those chosen by editors? Results of a rater-blinded, retrospective study. BMC Medicine, 4: 13. doi: 10.1186/1741-7015-4-13.

6. Association of Learned and Professional Society (2000). Current practice in peer review. Results of a survey conducted during Oct/Nov 2000. Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers: Worthing, UK.

Peer review and editorial decisionmaking at journals

REFERENCES

7. Samet JM (1999). Dear author-advice from a retiring editor . American Journal of Epidemiology, 150(5): 433-436.

8. Rothwell PM & Martyn CN (2000). Reproducibility of peer review in clinical neuroscience: Is agreement between reviewers any greater than would be expected by chance alone? Brain, 123(9): 1964–9.

9. Ray JG (2002). Judging the judges: The role of journal editors (editorial). Quarterly Journal of Medicine, 95: 769-74.

10. Coronel R (1999). The role of the reviewer in editorial decision-making. Cardiovascular Research, 43(2): 261-64. doi: 10.1016/S0008-6363(99)00177-7.

11. Nature. Peer-review policy. Last accessed August 4, 2011. Available at: http://www.nature.com/authors/policies/peer_review.html

12. Howard L & Wilkinson G (1999). Peer review and editorial decision-making. Neuroendocrinology Letters, 20(5): 256-260.

Peer review and editorial decisionmaking at journals

http://www.facebook.com/Editage

http://www.twitter.com/Editage

http://www.linkedin.com/company/cactus-communications

Connect with us on: