Storytelling for Science

Yep. I did.  And decided I would write the guidelines for peer review I wish I had been given. In the traditional publishing model, journal editors choose reviewers based on their expertise. Reviewers can now also choose to post comments on preprints that they have a particular interest in, based on their own research experience.  Crowd-sourced models have also begun to flourish. But there is no definition of what a GOOD peer review is and how to recognise it. We aim to provide curated resources for training, define quality standards, and raise pertinent questions that evolved from the current context in the publishing industry.  We want to help maintain integrity in the peer review process, by involving the community in assessing their own training needs.   Together with some colleagues (Gareth and Jo), we came up with a crowdsourced initiative . And we got some ideas, wishes, and plans. We hope to improve transparency and accountability in the peer review ...

I've been a good reviewer, not given in to unwarranted comments on laguage, not given in to unjustified criticism, and always submitting my reports on time.  I think I deserve some gifts 😝 Peer reviewer recognition wouldn't go amiss.  Here are some thoughts on how to make the academic reviewers in your life a bit happier, relaxed, and less prone to behaving like Reviewer 2 . 1. Institutions should allocate time for peer review within their faculty appointments The time it takes to do a good job with a peer review is often underestimated. ⏳ Given that this work is not financially compensated, at least time for it should be granted as part of the expected commitment to the scholarly community. 2. Graduate courses could teach peer review, much like they teach statistics There are techniques, concepts, and skills required to perform peer review. It is important ...

Why are abstracts so important? A lot can be gleaned from the title and abstract . Most readers only go through the first page to gauge whether an article is of interest to them. ➜ These sections are therefore critical.  The abstract should clearly describe the main idea of the article; however, in papers "produced" by papermills , the abstract often does not match what is represented in the title. Other times, authors add keywords to titles/abstracts ( keyword stuffing ) to pass scope checks, but the actual content of the article is unrelated to the keywords. These discrepancies are even the main cause for declarations of concern by publishers. It is increasingly difficult to discern reality from fiction. A lot of this is caused by the ever increasing rise in submitted papers and lack of formal standards or guidelines for peer review. Moreover, the notion of reviewing as a professional obligation fails to sufficiently recognize or reward the burden it imposes. The rest...

What's so special about this? Special issues are collections of papers centered around a subject of special interest and are organized and led by subject experts who take on the role of guest editor of the special issue. All submissions (...) are discoverable within the collection. MDPI A special Issue is a collection of articles that concentrates on a topical research area within the scope of a journal. Special Issues are targeted, timely, and insightful collections, meaning that they are often very well received. Hindawi A special issue focuses on a specific area of research that has a broad appeal and falls within the aims and scope of the journal. A special issue also provides an excellent opportunity to review a particular theme, examine previously unaddressed aspects, propose and develop new approaches, exchange perspectives and encourage new lines of research. Elsevier Special or themed issues can be a great way to focus attention on a topic of crucial interest. A good sp...

For those unfamiliar with or new to academic publishing, peer review manipulation is hard to spot. This is mainly because most peer review reports are still confidential documents that stay buried deep in academic journal's editorial offices. As long as this continues to be the default, recognising good and bad peer reviews is difficult enough... now we have to worry about fake peer review as well?! 😒 Well, yes. Yes, we do. The peer review process in academic publishing is unlike any other. The style and content of a manuscript are criticized, as are the thought processes that birthed it. Everything from word choice to significance of the research focus is under scrutiny. In traditional peer review formats, reviewers recommend that manuscripts be accepted or rejected. This much power may make some less scrupulous people guiddy... or yearning to rig the system. The refereeing work that is supposed to be one of the garantors of research integrity is itself highly susceptible to ma...

Let's get opinionated... Peer review is still the cornerstone of quality research. This has been repeated by so many during #PeerReviewWeek2023 , it almost lost its meaning to me. I participated in this conversation wholeheartedly, as a freelancer with a variety of roles, from content review to integrity audits.  I’m no longer in academia, but I did my stint there: it’s hard to imagine that many PhD students and postdocs get excited by performing their first peer review. It often results from an invitation trickle-down and, although it can be regarded as a learning opportunity, peer review is hard, time-consuming, unpaid, and often unrecognized work. Open participation is often regarded by researchers as the fairer, more constructive and productive process, leading to improvement in the quality of the finished version of the works. This is the iterative version of having a preprint published in a stable server, with access to all versions of the work, and “comments on”. ...

How was it for you? I'm tired, but I liked it... 😳 Listen... I made an effort! I really wanted this to come to the world fully formed yesterday...  It didn't happen. Too much information and "zooms" make me groggy... So, here we are. End of #PeerReviewWeek2023. My first full one.  How was it for you? I'm tired, but I liked it...      I promised a post a day, so I'm due one. This one. I want to tell you all about how I do this thing. Peer review is not an art form. It's work. We can break it down into a process. How do you become a good peer reviewer? Not to brag, but already doing it, I'm quite good 😎 ( did you see this? ) Here are some top tips: Read. In your area, in areas adjacent, sometimes in completely unrelated ones.  It's good to be aware of different styles and conventions, as they all have features we can learn from .  Reading keeps you up to speed with the latest developments in your field, and it is a good habit to maintain if you wan...

 What is peer/content review? ✒ Peer review is the refereeing work done by subject matter experts during the screening of research manuscripts. Also called content review. 👀 When is content review done? Post-publication review (auditing) focuses on identification of flaws, significance of findings, impact of the research, and reproducibility of methods. 📊   Read my take on it here and here . 📢 It can lead to withdrawals or retractions of published papers. 👮 Today, I'll talk about pre-publication review , which analyses quality of research design, rigour of data collection and interpretation, and novelty of the research findings. 🔍 It usually ends with a recommendation to the editor, either to accept for publication, minor revisions, major revisions, or reject. Why should content review be performed? It reduces the dissemination 🛂 of: irrelevant findings,  unwarranted claims,  unacceptable interpretations,  and personal views. This process encourages aut...

Why is this not accepted already? You designed the research.  Collected data.  Analysed it.  Wrote the paper.  Submitted it.   It bounced. 😧 😞   You re-formatted it.  Submitted to another journal.  It went to peer review. Reviewers asked for extra experiments you never thought were necessary.  You spent time, money, and energy working on those.  Resubmitted.   Rejected again. 😖😠   What are you doing wrong?  That should be more than enough, right? Some things you just can't polish... 💩   Go back to basics.   Was the research design sound?   Were the findings interesting and/or novel?  Did you compare them to all the relevant literature?     It's dog eat dog out there. 🐕   In the time it took for you to conduct and write up your extra experiments, a competitor may have submitted their paper to another or the same journal as you. Maybe theirs is further ahead in the editorial process. ...