Earlier this year I decided to step around to the other side of the publishing table. Instead of anxiously awaiting my fate as an author undergoing peer-review, I took the opportunity for the first time to act as a reviewer for an academic journal.
It certainly made for an interesting experience. In fact, I think that the insights I gained have made me a better author for my own papers. I’ve now got a much better idea of how the reviewing process works, including what reviewers are looking for when they’re deciding whether or not to accept a journal article.
I recommend you give it a go at least once yourself when you have the opportunity. If you’re not yet convinced read on to find out my own experiences!
Looking for some help with your own papers? I’ve written a whole series about publishing which you can check out here: Writing an academic journal paper
Do you get paid to peer-review journal articles?
Firstly let’s get out the way that you don’t get paid for your time reviewing articles for a journal.
There is a big debate in academia around the economics of publishing. This includes the fact that reviewers are not paid for their time.
We’ll save an in-depth debate about all of this for another post, so for now I’ll simply say that I agree with the widely held sentiment that the current system is not great. It’s not right to expect academics to pay to publish their research and pay to access papers but then not compensate the time spent doing the critical peer-reviewing of papers.
For this reason, plus the small fact that I’ve only relatively recently starting receiving any legitimate requests (!), I’ve only reviewed one academic paper. Even with these issues, for your own development it can be worth doing at least once when you have the opportunity.
Why I think being a reviewer can be a good idea
There are loads of potential reasons to consider being a journal reviewer, here a few obvious ones:
- You get to read a preview of work you’re interested in. Being a reviewer means accepting the opportunity to read some cutting edge work in the your field before it’s published. You can help shape what the final publication will include.
- You gain an understanding of the review process. It can be daunting submitting a paper for publication. Being a reviewer I think actually helps take away some of this fear. It can help illustrate exactly what reviewers expect from a paper.
- It can be rewarding! If you’re anything like me you’ll enjoy helping others to improve their work. You can help to effectively deliver the new work to the world.
Beyond these reasons, carrying out peer-review does of course do the research community a favour of facilitating publishing. There is an argument that if no one accepted invitations to peer-review, the whole system would grind to a halt. I don’t see that as much of a reason to not compensate reviewers for their time. Anyhow, I do appreciate the notion though of helping out progress the research field.
For me I was mostly intrigued to see what the process of being a reviewer was like. Plus I knew it would also give me an opportunity to write this post and share it with you all!
What I learned peer-reviewing for a journal
Appreciating what reviewers are looking for
Being on the other side of the peer-review process you suddenly realise how important it is that a clear message is communicated. The main findings should jump out of the page. It should be immediately obvious to reviewers why your work is of value to the community.
Remember, reviewers are not just quality-control checking your manuscript for their own benefit but also considering future readers. Both the text and figures must clearly demonstrate the importance of the work to a wide audience. I didn’t fully appreciate this until I was in the position of reviewing a paper for myself.
Yes, you can certainly learn this without reviewing someone else’s paper. But what I found interesting was that when I was reviewing the paper, I wasn’t just ensuring that I could follow what was going on, but also considering that future readers would understand it clearly too.
Peer-review checklist of requirements
One thing which surprised me was that there were some very specific criteria for papers to meet if they were to stand a chance of being accepted. These included:
It makes sense that some journals may have such explicit criteria, but it was still a bit of a surprise to me.
This list does include some obvious housekeeping requirements but also some criteria which may not necessarily be clear to all potential authors. For this type of article the journal explicitly wants to ensure the following criteria are met by authors:
- Does this manuscript describe a protocol that will be of interest to other scientists? Please note that novelty is NOT a requirement for publication, but the efficacy of the protocol must be demonstrated.
- Is there sufficient introduction for the protocol?
- Is there an unbiased discussion of the protocol?
I’m now aware that reviewers of my own papers may have explicit boxes which have to be ticked for the article to be accepted. Of course the criteria will vary depend on the type of paper and journal you’re submitting to. The paper I reviewed was of a certain biological testing protocol hence why the criteria focus on that.
This has now made me more conscious to ensure I’ve thoroughly reading the journal’s guide for authors. Make sure to address all the suggestions for each section and make your message as clearly as possible. See this other post about making a start on writing your own paper here.
How much of a commitment is it?
By the time the paper lands at your desk for review, months of work will have been put into it. If you do decide to review a paper, make sure that you can give it the time it deserves. The paper I reviewed earlier this year was pretty short, and high quality, but still took me a few hours to read and carry out all the necessary paperwork.
Included in this article are some more opinions about all aspects of reviewing a paper, including how long other researchers spend reviewing each paper.
If you decide to take on peer-review of a paper, do consider whether or not you can dedicate yourself to it in a timely matter. Ideally you’ll return the paper quickly so that the authors aren’t waiting an unnecessarily long time for a response!
Should you peer-review papers yourself?
Personally I think there is a lot to be gained from becoming a reviewer, even if it’s just for one paper.
When you get an email asking you to peer-review an article, the title of the article will be included. Assuming it’s a legit journal, the editing team will have sought you out because of your expertise related to the field. Even so, make sure you feel comfortable that you can fairly assess the quality of the work. You shouldn’t feel obliged to accept!
I personally found my experience very insightful and if nothing else having the opportunity to get a taster of new work by other researchers can be very exciting!
What thoughts do you have on reviewing papers? Have you tried it? Do you think we need to come up with an entirely new publishing system? Whatever your thoughts, I’d love to hear them!
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