How Long Dooes Peer Review Take to Get Thru

Peer review process and editorial conclusion making at journals

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This article is role of a Series

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Fundamental takeaways:

• Peer review is the process by which journals scrutinize and regulate the quality of content they publish, by inviting experts in the field to review and comment on manuscripts received.
• Manuscripts submitted to a journal offset get through an initial screening by the editorial team.
• Those that clear the screening are sent to at least two experts for peer review.
•  Peer reviewers independently make a recommendation to the journal editor as to whether the manuscript should exist rejected or accepted (with or without revisions).
• The journal editor considers all the feedback from peer reviewers and makes an informed decision to accept or reject the manuscript.

This article was originally published in 2013 and is being recirculated every bit part of Peer Review Calendar week 2021.

The peer review process for journal publication is essentially a quality command mechanism. Information technology is a process by which experts evaluate scholarly works, and its objective is to ensure a high quality of published scientific discipline. All the same, peer reviewers do not make the decision to accept or decline papers. At nigh, they recommend a determination. At peer-reviewed journals, decision-making potency rests solely with journal editors or the journal's editorial board. Indeed, it is the journal editor who is considered to be central to the decision making process.¹

Journal controlling procedure

Typically, after a paper is submitted to a journal, a periodical editor screens the manuscript and decides whether or non to send it for full peer review. But after clearing the initial screening is the manuscript sent to 1 or more than peer reviewers. Finally, journal editors or the periodical's editorial board consider the peer reviewers' reports and make the concluding decision to take or reject the manuscript for publication.

Initial screening

Approximately three million manuscripts are submitted to journals every year.¹ Given the large volume of manuscript submissions, more and more journals follow a policy of screening papers before sending them for full peer review. During the initial screening, journal editors mainly check the following:

Peer review

Once  a manuscript clears the initial screening, it is sent for peer review.

In that location are three common types of peer review for periodical publication:

• Unmarried blind: names of reviewers are non revealed to authors
• Double blind: names of reviewers and authors are non revealed to each other
• Open up peer review: Names of authors and reviewers are revealed to each other

Editors' controlling policies vary: some reject when fifty-fifty i peer reviewer recommends rejection, some when the majority recommend rejection, and some merely when all reviewers recommend rejection.²
Information technology is common for peer reviewers to give conflicting feedback on the same manuscript.^eight,nine 1 journal editorial went every bit far equally to say "Unanimity between reviewers is rare."^ten In cases of conflicting feedback, the journal editor may choose to ship the newspaper to a third reviewer before arriving at a decision, and the author may take to wait longer for the peer review procedure to be completed.

In reality, reviewers tend to recommend credence more than oftentimes than rejection.^ten Thus, journal editors stop upwardly rejecting many papers that peer reviewers actually recommended for publication, with their decisions based on their own opinions of the papers' publication worthiness. The role of peer review is considered to exist helping authors amend their manuscripts rather than deciding whether they should be published, which is the journal editor'southward job.

Conclusion

Because of a large number of submissions, top-tier journals are often forced to reject even high quality manuscripts for various reasons, like a large number of submissions or lack of fit with the journal's editorial focus.² While reviewers and editors easily agree on what is clearly not acceptable for publication, deciding what is worthy of publication is a tougher claiming.¹² Finally, journal editors brand decisions to accept or reject papers based on their opinion of the papers' publication worthiness and reviewers' comments.^x

Click hither to view a curt presentation on this topic!

Also see the post-obit questions in our Q&A forum about the journal editorial process:

• What are the first things journal editors expect at in a submission packet?
• How long should I wait for a response from the journal?
• What is the meaning of "decision in procedure" status?

• House of Commons Science and Engineering science Committee (2011). Peer review in scientific publications Vol i. Firm of Commons: London, UK.
• Schultz DM (2010). Rejection rates for journals publishing in the atmospheric sciences. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Order, 91(2): 231-243. doi: 10.1175/2009BAMS2908.1.]
• Thomson Reuters (2011). Increasing the quality and timeliness of peer review: A report for scholarly publishers [white paper]. Bachelor at: http://scholarone.com/media/pdf/peerreviewwhitepaper.pdf
• Hutchings A (2006). Differences in review quality and recommendations for publication between peer reviewers suggested by authors or by editors. JAMA, 295(3): 314-317.
• Wager E, Parkin EC, Tamber PS (2006). Are reviewers suggested by authors as skilful as those chosen by editors? Results of a rater-blinded, retrospective report. BMC Medicine, four: 13. doi: 10.1186/1741-7015-4-13.
• Association of Learned and Professional person Society (2000). Current practice in peer review. Results of a survey conducted during October/Nov 2000. Clan of Learned and Professional Society Publishers: Worthing, United kingdom.
• Samet JM (1999). Dear author-advice from a retiring editor. American Journal of Epidemiology, 150(5): 433-436.
• Rothwell PM & Martyn CN (2000). Reproducibility of peer review in clinical neuroscience: Is agreement betwixt reviewers any greater than would exist expected by chance alone? Encephalon, 123(9): 1964–9.
• Ray JG (2002). Judging the judges: The part of journal editors (editorial). Quarterly Journal of Medicine, 95: 769-74.
• Coronel R (1999). The role of the reviewer in editorial controlling. Cardiovascular Research, 43(2): 261-64. doi: 10.1016/S0008-6363(99)00177-7.
• Nature. Peer-review policy. Last accessed August four, 2011. Available at: http://www.nature.com/authors/policies/peer_review.html
• Howard Fifty & Wilkinson G (1999). Peer review and editorial decision-making. Neuroendocrinology Letters, twenty(five): 256-260.

Published on: Nov 04, 2013

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Source: https://www.editage.com/insights/peer-review-process-and-editorial-decision-making-at-journals

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