Peer Review Week 2019: Comments from across the Communities

We asked: What’s the best (or worst) review you’ve ever received, and why? Here’s what was said, and other highlights from the week
Published in Research Data
Peer Review Week 2019: Comments from across the Communities
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From astronomy to zoology, peer review is universal across all subject areas, and so for Peer Review Week this year we asked the exact same question to each of our Community sites:

What’s the best (or worst) review you’ve ever received, and why?

Here’s how each Community answered:

Astronomy

Bioengineering

Chemistry  

Device & Materials Engineering 

Ecology & Evolution 

Microbiology

Sustainability

  • After opposite experiences with the same paper at two different journals, Wang Chao suggested a reviewer ranking system might help to standardise and improve the peer review process

Other Peer Review Week Community Highlights

Regular Contributor Juliano Morimoto compares the peer review process to Greek mythology on the Ecology & Evolution Community, and shares his experience as an author, reviewer and editor from the perspective of an early career researcher. Also on Ecology & Evolution, another one of our regulars Camille Delavaux considers how a paper travels through peer review and how ultimately this helps shape the final publication.  

The editors at Communications Biology ran a series of posts across our Community sites for Peer Review Week all of which involved contributions from their editorial board. On the Microbiology site, Brooke LaFlamme discusses the role of peer review in science; Christina Karlsson Rosenthal shares some thoughts on achieving high quality peer review on Bioengineering; and back to the Ecology & Evolution Community with Dominique Morneau on the future of peer review.


In all of these comments and posts, the same things about peer review pop up repeatedly, all of which are somewhat obvious but are clearly being overlooked. If you agree to review a manuscript, then make sure to read the paper and be constructive with your comments but do not be rude or personally attack the authors. We’ll leave it there, until next year…

Thanks to everyone for sharing their thoughts and experiences! 

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