What is Peer Review & What's It's Role

As a scientist, it is important to write and submit manuscripts to communicate your methods, progress and results with others in the field, contribute to the scientific literature, and (hopefully) reach wider non-academic audiences so your work can inform policy and practice. Publishing work is difficult, after all the data collection and analysis, all the writing and editing, the final hurdle is peer review.  

The peer review process ultimately aims to be a form of safety net to keep the work published in scientific journals of high quality. Independent experts will review the manuscript and provide detailed feedback on ways in which the work and/or writing can be improved, and they will often ask questions and give alternative perspectives to encourage the authors to think more laterally on the topic, methods, and results.  

 

The Peer Review Process 

For some journals, when you submit a manuscript through the online portal, you may be asked to suggest names of potential reviewers. It can be helpful to keep a list of people to suggest for specific topic areas as you begin to submit more manuscripts. It can also speed things up if you suggest someone you know has the time to review as often you can be waiting for months to hear back on your submission due to the editor having difficulties in finding reviewers.  

Once the manuscript has been submitted, it will first be reviewed by the editor to ensure that the topic is within the scope of the journal and that it’s formatted correctly. If it’s not, it may be “desk rejected” and sent back to the authors. If all is correct, it will be sent out for peer-review. Usually, two or three experts from the same or similar field will be invited. It is common practice for journals to implement a double-blind review process whereby the reviewers don’t know the authors or institutions, and the authors don’t know who the reviewers are. It’s also important to keep in mind that these experts are volunteering to review your manuscript and are not typically paid for their time.  

Reviewers are given a few weeks to submit their feedback, including a recommendation to accept the manuscript in its current form (very uncommon), accept pending major or minor amendments (more common), or reject. Once the feedback has been collated, the authors will receive a report will all the reviewers' comments and recommendations. The authors will then have the opportunity to amend the manuscript based on the feedback or and respond to reviewer comments.  

 

How to Respond  

You have worked really hard on this manuscript, you’ve waited a really long time for the reviewer report, and now they have slated your work. You’re probably feeling quite sad and personally attacked, but this is (unfortunately) normal. The best thing you can do is read through the report and then put it away for a day or two. Try not think about it, and then come back with a fresh set of eyes. The comments will seem less personal and easier to digest.  

Now you’ve had a chance to reflect, it’s time to respond to comments and make edits. The quicker this is done, the closer you are to having your work published.  

• Start your reply by thanking the editors and reviewers for their time. Show them that you have carefully considered all the feedback and appreciate their time and effort.  

• Be mindful of your tone. The aim is to sound respectful, competent and open to feedback – even if a reviewer is rude. Coming across as argumentative and defensive is not going to get you anywhere.  

• Before attacking, consider the feedback. Often, we are so immersed in our research that we make leaps in our writing or explanations, but if a reviewer doesn’t understand how you came to such a conclusion readers won’t either.  

• Don’t be afraid to disagree with comments. Although most comments are going to result in edits to the manuscript, some comments will just need a response explaining yourself more clearly. Be concise and polite in your response and provide a rationale as to why you haven’t made changes to the manuscript if you disagree with the suggestion.  

 

How to Structure Your Reply

1. If there is a lot of overlap and similarities between reviewers, it might be useful to structure your responses by section, e.g., Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion. If the comments are quite different, it may make more sense to structure responses by review, e.g., answer all Reviewer 1 comments, then answer all Reviewer 2 comments etc.  

2. It can be helpful to number each comment made by each reviewer. Create a table for each reviewer with four columns; comment number, reviewer comment, your response, page/line in the text.  

3. Use a different format or colour to differentiate your response to the reviewer comment. If you are including a direct quote within the reviewer response report, make sure you use quotation marks and italics.  

Reviewer 1
1	Participants mean age should be included	Agree. We have accordingly modified the text to include mean age +- standard deviation.	Page 4, lines 8-15

 

 

4. Respond point by point to all comments and questions.  

5. Be clear and concise. Don’t write them a novel, but also see point 1 above. Make sure you answer everything.  

6. Make each response self-contained. Include where in the text the edit has been made by including the page number and line number. 

7. Highlight in the manuscript where the text has been changed. 

8. In some cases, it can be helpful to include a direct quote from the manuscript with the updated text within the reviewer report 

 

Dos & Don’ts

Have co-authors or a colleague review your responses before you submit them.  

Use references to back up your points.  

Re-read reviewer comments a couple of times to make sure you understand what is being asked. 

It can be helpful to go through all the comments and respond to the ‘easy’ ones first. This can help you get comfortable and build momentum.  

Pick your battles. Don’t defend every comment, it just looks like you are not open to feedback. Often, if reviewers suggest you run a different statistical analysis, even if it results in the same findings, just do it. Save yourself the hassle of going back and forth.  

Try avoiding saying ‘thank you’ to every single comment. Demonstrating you have thoughtfully considered each point is more meaningful and polite than saying thank you x100.