Auditing published papers (part II)

The papers I audit passed peer review before publication?

Well… sometimes it does not look like they did. 😒

The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity (ECCRI) states that: 

“Researchers (must) take seriously their commitment and responsibility to the research community, through refereeing, reviewing, and assessment”

Illustration by Mohamed_hassan.

Most of the time, scientists review the work of their peers solely for peer recognition. Gratification may never happen. When were you ever paid for that? 💸

Reviewers are obliged to confidentiality 🙊, must declare actual or perceived conflicts of interest 🙉, and respect the rights of authors 🙈 (i.e., not use the ideas/findings they are reviewing for their own research without permission).

With so little in terms of rewards, why would you do this immensely challenging, labour-intensive, and unpaid work?

Because the cost of not doing it far outweighs the discomfort. 💪

Peer review has uncovered:

  • Fabrication: making up data.

  • Falsification: manipulating protocols and/or omitting data without justification.

  • Plagiarism: using other's work or ideas without giving credit to the original source.
 

Good peer review is one of the main bastions in the evolution of knowledge.


Science builds on itself. I could never have uncovered some of the findings I did 📓, if I had not been able to trust the work published before I started. 📖

I learnt a lot by reading wonderfully descriptive and quite lyrical papers published in the 1960s and 1970s (for which I'm forever indebted to the British Library). But also from heavy-duty mathematical modelling (thank you Prof Pries!). This way, I could find context for me.

Next, I'll detail how I do it...

 

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