Budding authors, whom I come across have posed a question to me “Whether Peer reviewing a manuscript is must?” I was surprised, and answered “Peer reviewing is not a must but mandatory”. Peer reviewers are often projected to be a “criticisers”. A definite “No”. Reviewers critically analyse the submitted manuscript and provide a helping hand for the authors to improve the quality of the draft for better scientific outcomes in research.
The manuscript once passed from the editor, it enters the peer review phase for expert opinion on the current research. Traditional peer review process used by majority of the journals are single and double blinded peer review. In a single-blind peer review, the name of the reviewer is kept anonymous but the authors name and institution is known to the reviewer. In a double-blind peer review neither the reviewer nor the author is known to each other. “Are we still in the old age home?” An alternative to standard methods are “Open peer review system and Artificial Intelligence (AI)”. Open peer review is otherwise termed as “crowd sourced” where the articles are published to the scientific community either immediately of after the elucidation of the initial checks by the editors.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) have been a boon to the scientific research era. This AI assess the research quality, validity and the relevance of a manuscript by analysing and comparing the study content with the existing literature. AI identifies the potential mishaps in the research methodology and data analysis, thereby improving the quality of the manuscript. Although AI has enormous significance of faster processing, transparency and limiting the burden for reviewers, it can never replace the skills of a human peer reviewers. AI can be determined to assess certain factors or criteria in the manuscript but nothing equalises the experience and expertise of a human reviewer.
“How manuscripts are assessed by the reviewers?” Reviewer looks out for originality and initially evaluates whether the topic of manuscript is relevant to the requirement of the journal. Whether the manuscript is drafted with clarity and free from bias. Once the manuscript is read, it gives a broad idea on the pros and cons of the context and what present information adds up to the scientific community. The key essential aspect of reviewers is to clearly assess the research question or the subject knowledge of the authors.
The Abstract must offer a precise understanding of the study and the Introductionshould hypothesize a research question that evoked the authors to perform the study. The quality and the validity of a study is solely dependent on the Materials and methods.It is necessary to make sure how well the study data and the research proposal were described. The comparisons and the controls should be accurately defined and the outcome measures should be analysed with validation.
Results are the prime eye opener of the study. Clear interpretation of the study outcomes presented in the tables and figures should be defined with ease and validated with statistical methods. Reviewers in question on assessing the results using statistical tests must look in for a supporting hand from the editors to analyse the data. As the name says it all, the Discussion must be concise and interpret the present findings of the study with the results outcome published in English literature. The limitations and the drawbacks of the study must be relevant and positioned appropriately to progress with a future scientific research on a larger scale. The inference of the study determines the conclusion. One must understand whether the research question for the present study has been answered. Restate the key relevant points of the study with proper closure. References chosen should be current enough to be relevant. Preferably, original studies are counted to be a source of information than review articles.
The aim of peer reviewer is to help the authors to improve the research ideas and to offer a productive base for the future research. “Peer reviewing is not a choice or an option, it is mandatory”.
