Finding The Details: Monitoring Peer Reviewers

Peer review is an essential part of the academic publishing process, acting as a quality check for journals and providing feedback for authors. The process involves independent experts assessing a manuscript's validity, significance, and originality. While peer review has been criticised for its potential biases and limitations, it remains the only widely accepted method for research validation.

Different types of peer review exist, including single-blind, double-blind, and open peer review, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. The peer review process can be time-consuming and challenging, especially with the increasing number of article submissions. Editors must consider factors such as reviewer expertise, potential conflicts of interest, diversity, and reviewer fatigue when selecting reviewers.

To find details on peer reviewers, editors can refer to reference sections, search tools, editorial boards, previous authors, and their personal networks. Monitoring peer reviewers can help maintain the integrity of the process and ensure timely and constructive evaluations. It is important to encourage diversity, provide recognition, and address any conflicts of interest among peer reviewers to improve the overall quality of the peer review process.

Check the references in the article

Checking the references in an article is a crucial step in determining its credibility and whether it has undergone peer review. Here are some detailed instructions on how to check the references and assess the peer review status of an article:

Firstly, focus on the references themselves. Are they listed in footnotes, endnotes, or parenthetical citations? Is there a list of bibliographic references at the end of the article? The presence of these elements indicates that the article is properly sourced and referenced, which is a key characteristic of peer-reviewed scholarly articles.

Next, assess the nature of the references. Do they include citations for other peer-reviewed articles and books? Are the references from credible and relevant sources? Are they recent and up-to-date, or outdated and obsolete? Checking the quality of the references helps validate the research presented in the article.

Additionally, pay attention to the language and style of the article. Peer-reviewed articles often use technical, specialized language and jargon specific to the field. They may also include illustrations such as charts, graphs, or occasional black-and-white photos to support the research, rather than for entertainment. The article should be substantial in length, typically at least 10 pages, but often 20-40 pages or more.

Finally, you can verify the peer review status of the article by checking the journal's website. Look for sections like "Information for Authors", "Instructions for Authors", "Author Guidelines", or "About this Journal". These sections typically outline the journal's peer review policy and process. If you're unable to find this information on the journal's website, try consulting online databases or Ulrichsweb, which is a directory that indicates whether a journal is peer-reviewed or refereed.

By following these steps and carefully examining the references and characteristics of the article, you can make an informed assessment of its peer review status.

Use search tools and databases to find researchers working on similar topics

There are several search tools and databases that can help you find researchers working on similar topics. Here are some of the key ones:

• Web of Science Reviewer Recognition Reviewer Connect: This service provides access to more than seven million expert researchers by combining the Web of Science Reviewer Recognitions database of reviewers with the Web of Science, the world's premier article and citation index.
• Taylor and Francis reviewer locator tool: This tool allows you to search for researchers based on keywords in their manuscripts. It trawls through millions of articles and documents on PubMed to find the most relevant authors. You can also view authors based on the number of publications by subject, helping you find potential reviewers with the right experience.
• ScholarOne's Reviewer Locator tool: This tool can be used to find reviewers based on the keywords in the manuscript's abstract. You can set your search preferences to ensure you get the information you need to select reviewers efficiently.
• Google Scholar: Google Scholar is a powerful academic search engine that provides access to research papers and patents across all disciplines. It often provides links to full-text PDF files and is free to use.
• R Discovery: This is an AI-powered app with an expanding library of over 100 million research papers across various subjects. It uses your topics of interest to create a personalized reading feed with smart summaries and other features, helping you discover relevant research quickly.
• Scopus: This is an abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed research with over 1.7 billion cited references. It houses content from more than 25,000 active titles and 7,000 publishers, and provides analytical tools to visualize and compare research data.
• Reference Management Tools: Tools like Zotero, Mendeley, and EndNote can help you create libraries of relevant articles, format references, detect duplicate entries, and collaborate with other researchers. They are excellent for correctly linking sources and citing referenced articles.

Use your editorial board

Your editorial board is a great source for both reviews and reviewer recommendations. Engaging them in the peer review process will help you improve the efficiency of peer review and expand your reviewer pool.

• Invite board members to review articles based on their subject specialism. You could even make carrying out reviews for the journal one of the conditions of becoming a board member.
• Encourage board members to recruit reviewers at networking events and conferences. Conference presenters are often useful to approach as potential reviewers or authors.
• Encourage board members to engage early career researchers in their network, which will increase the diversity of your reviewer pool.

Your editorial board can be a valuable resource in the peer review process. By inviting board members to review articles within their areas of expertise, you can ensure that manuscripts are evaluated by qualified individuals. Additionally, board members can help identify potential reviewers within their networks, especially at networking events and conferences. This can lead to a more diverse pool of reviewers, including early career researchers. Utilizing your editorial board can streamline the peer review process and enhance the overall efficiency of your publication process.

Consider previous authors and guest editors

When considering previous authors and guest editors as potential peer reviewers, it is important to ensure that they are qualified and do not have any conflicts of interest.

Firstly, previous authors and guest editors should have sufficient subject matter expertise to assess the article. They should be independent researchers in the relevant research area, with relevant experience and a proven publication record in the field of the submitted paper.

Secondly, it is crucial to check for any potential conflicts of interest. Previous authors and guest editors should not have any relationships with the authors that could bias their review. They should not be from the same institution as the authors or have published with them in the last three years.

By considering these factors, editors can ensure that previous authors and guest editors are qualified and unbiased peer reviewers.

In addition to considering previous authors and guest editors, there are several other strategies that editors can use to find peer reviewers. These include checking the references in the article, using search tools and databases to find researchers working on similar topics, using the editorial board and predefined keywords, asking reviewers who decline for suggestions, and considering early-career researchers or junior colleagues.

By employing these strategies, editors can effectively identify qualified and suitable peer reviewers for submitted articles.

Ask reviewers who decline for suggestions

Invited reviewers decline to review for a number of reasons, but that doesn’t mean they can’t still help you find alternatives. You could even add a request to ‘suggest appropriate alternative reviewers’ into your initial invitation to review, to make it clear upfront how they can help you.

Reasons for declining

There are many reasons why a reviewer might decline to review a manuscript. They may have a conflict of interest, such as a personal disagreement, a conflicting approach to the work, or a sense based on past interactions that they would not be able to comment on the manuscript fairly. It is also possible that the reviewer does not have the time to give the paper the attention it deserves.

How to respond

If a reviewer declines, it is good practice to ask them for suggestions of appropriate alternative reviewers. This can be done at the outset by making such a request in the initial invitation to review.

How to ask

When asking for suggestions of alternative reviewers, it is important to be respectful and grateful for the reviewer's time. It is also crucial to be transparent about any potential conflicts of interest that may exist with the suggested reviewers.

What to do if you disagree with a reviewer's suggestion

If you disagree with a reviewer's suggestion, it is important to respond respectfully and explain your reasoning clearly. It may be helpful to use phrases such as "follow-up study", "future research/consideration", and "outside the scope of the study this time" to decline the suggestion respectfully. It is also important to acknowledge the reviewer's suggestion before stating your reasons for not making the suggested change.

Frequently asked questions