Peer Review Guidelines

Ensuring the integrity of the scholarly record through responsible and ethical peer review.

Peer review in all its forms plays an important role in ensuring the integrity of the scholarly record. The process depends to a large extent on trust and requires that everyone involved behave responsibly and ethically. Peer reviewers play a central and critical part in the peer-review process, but too often come to the role without any guidance and may be unaware of their ethical obligations. The COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers set out the basic principles and standards to which all peer reviewers should adhere during the peer-review process. It is hoped they will provide helpful guidance to researchers, be a reference for journals and editors in guiding their reviewers, and act as an educational resource for institutions in training their students and researchers.

Before Reviewing

Before you accept or decline an invitation to review, consider the following questions:

• Does the article match your area of expertise? Only accept if you feel you can provide a high-quality review.
• Do you have a potential conflict of interest? Disclose this to the editor when you respond.
• Do you have time? Reviewing can be a lot of work – before you commit, make sure you can meet the deadline.
• Do you need to find out more about reviewing and the peer review process? If so, check out the free tutorials on the Peer Review Process.

Reviewing Agreement & Guidelines

Respond to the invitation as soon as you can (even if it is to decline) – a delay in your decision slows down the review process and means more waiting for the author. If you do decline the invitation, it would be helpful if you could provide suggestions for alternative reviewers.

If you accept, you must treat the materials you receive as confidential documents. This means you can’t share them with anyone without prior authorization from the editor. Since peer review is confidential, you also must not share information about the review with anyone without permission from the editors and authors.

Methodology

If the manuscript you are reviewing is reporting an experiment, check the methods section first. The following cases are considered major flaws and should be flagged:

• Unsound methodology
• Discredited method
• Missing processes known to be influential on the area of reported research
• A conclusion drawn in contradiction to the statistical or qualitative evidence reported in the manuscript

For analytical papers examine the sampling report, which is mandated in time-dependent studies. For qualitative research make sure that a systematic data analysis is presented and sufficient descriptive elements with relevant quotes from interviews are listed in addition to the author’s narrative.

Research Data and Visualizations

Once you are satisfied that the methodology is sufficiently robust, examine any data in the form of figures, tables, or images. Authors may add research data, including data visualizations, to their submission to enable readers to interact and engage more closely with their research after publication. Critical issues in research data, which are considered to be major flaws, can be related to insufficient data points, statistically non-significant variations, and unclear data tables.

Ethical Considerations & Overview

Experiments including patient or animal data should be properly documented. Most journals require ethical approval by the author’s host organization.

If you don’t spot any major flaws, take a break from the manuscript, giving yourself time to think. Your review will help the editor decide whether or not to publish the article. Your comments should be courteous and constructive, and should not include any ad hominem remarks or personal details including your name and/or affiliation. You should explain and support your judgment so that both editors and authors are able to fully understand the reasoning behind your comments.

The Review Process: Step-by-Step