In academia, peer review or refereeing is often used to determine an academic paper's suitability for publication by experts in the same field.
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5answers
349 views
Rejecting more papers than accepting
I made a little statistics about my review decisions. I found out that I reject way more papers than I accept. I honestly try to accept the reviewed papers, I read them carefully and my review are ...
6
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1answer
182 views
What if you have submitted a research article in a reputed journal that has a slight error?
What if you have submitted a research article in a reputed journal that has a slight error? Recently I have submitted my paper in a reputed journal which is now under review. I have proposed few ...
5
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4answers
200 views
How long and detailed should be the rejection comment when reviewing and rejecting a paper?
If someone is a reviewer and recommends major revisions to a medical journal paper, the review can be quite lengthy. (e.g., list of 10-15 points to work on)
On the other hand, how detailed should be ...
5
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1answer
75 views
Final round of reviewing for a Program Committee
I've been recently involved in a Program Committee, and I was wondering what exactly was expected of the PC members from the PC Chair. Once all the reviews have been collected, are the reviewers ...
11
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3answers
334 views
Is it ethical for departments to have publication requirements for students
This question and this question suggest that it is not uncommon/unheard of for departments to require publication by students (generally masters and doctoral) either to get credit for a course or ...
17
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2answers
273 views
What changes after peer review but prior to final submission are acceptable?
Suppose I write a paper and submit it to a conference. The paper gets some weak rejects and weak accepts and lots of criticism, but the conference is not that prestigious, so they accept it anyway.
...
12
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4answers
227 views
How can I invite open comments or reviews of my published papers?
I would like to attract more discussion, comments or reviews of my papers and so would like to add the ability for comments or reviews to be made by the public in relation to my papers. Ideally I ...
17
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4answers
919 views
Is it acceptable as referee to contact an author on a paper you review?
I am reviewing the second revision of a paper and am getting tired of this incredibly slow process of me pointing something out that requires clarification just to hear back from those authors two or ...
4
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1answer
115 views
How much can you share unpublished forum articles?
There are some journals, such as Behavioral and Brain Sciences, that publish a single target article per issue, followed by 20 to 30 commentaries on that article, and then a rebuttal/synthesis from ...
15
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5answers
626 views
Is it a bad idea to submit a paper merely to elicit reviewers' comments?
Some days ago I was talking with a friend of mine, who is currently a post-doc at the illustrious Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) working on humanoid robotics.
He was quite disgruntled because ...
8
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2answers
134 views
Are book reviews peer-reviewed? Are news articles peer-reviewed?
A couple of simple questions:
Books are not peer reviewed in general. Are book reviews that appear in academic journals peer-reviewed? Since they represent personal opinions, I would think they ...
17
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2answers
262 views
Should I accept review requests from dubious journals?
I'm a graduate student with, so far, one published article in a peer-reviewed journal. Since the article came out, I've been receiving increasing amounts of "academic e-mail spam" from people wanting ...
10
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5answers
384 views
Why don't all disciplines follow a double-blind review system?
I'm new to the journal publishing world, and I can't but help wonder why the review process isn't completely blind? By blind, I mean the reviewers don't know who performed the research or (more ...
23
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3answers
778 views
Author did not make the major changes asked during the review process
I recently had my first paper to review. Since it was the first one, I took great care to be as constructive as possible and to formulate correct and accurate questions / suggestions. At that time, I ...
16
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3answers
541 views
Is it acceptable to decline to review a paper due to lack of familiarity?
I have recently started my PhD studies. My advisor, as member of a program committee, has delegated a the review of a conference paper to me. This is my second peer review.
Since I have not done ...
15
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2answers
202 views
How does the acceptance rate affect papers decisions?
Some conferences do maintain a percentage for the number of accepted papers to the total number of submissions.
Does this mean some good papers will be inevitably rejected just to maintain the ...
27
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10answers
1k views
Is asking an author I'm reviewing to cite me a conflict of interest?
I'm reviewing a paper whose work is quite related to some of my early PhD work, that was about 2 years ago. I have a paper published in a Journal that proved that method A had good solutions for the ...
4
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1answer
118 views
How to get a PC member's attention to comment on or review my submission?
I have submitted a thesis abstract to PhD consortium and my submission was accepted.
I just noticed that one of the program committee is well known professor on my thesis area. Actually, many of the ...
10
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3answers
174 views
Can a reviewer suggest literature for improving the language?
I am working on my PhD now for 1.5 years and was recently asked by my supervisor to assist him with a review. The reviewed paper was also written by a non-native speaker.
For my first publication I ...
13
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3answers
465 views
Why do some reviewers mention their decision explicitly?
Recently, some of the reviews I received mentioned their decision at the end of the review (i.e. 'I recommend acceptance of the paper'), while others do not have such statements.
What is the point ...
2
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2answers
81 views
What is the location of the nomenclature section in a scientific paper?
I received this comment from a reviewer: “ It is better to add a nomenclature section with a list of all the used symbols and their meaning as example (DVB-T, DVB-S2, BCH, OSFBC, LDPC...), ...
15
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4answers
259 views
Are reviewers supposed to know each others' identity, after the reviewing process is finished?
I reviewed an article and submitted my review along with a short letter to the editor. As a service the journal permits to see the decision letter and the other review. However, I am also able to see ...
7
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2answers
154 views
Thesis peer review “service”
There are a lot of post about peer review of papers, but how about graduate/undergraduate thesis?
Is there somewhere on the vast internet, where one can submit his thesis for a peer review.
The ...
10
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6answers
279 views
Festschrift articles: is the peer-review as strict as for other papers?
Many journals sometimes publish Festschriften, i.e. special issues in honor of a distinguished (but still alive) researcher in their field. Articles for such issues are typically invited articles by ...
11
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4answers
162 views
Is checking the format of a paper an expected part of the reviewing process?
I have some papers to review and I am wondering whether I should do an in-depth inspection over the whole paper format? I see nothing major but there might be some tiny format errors here and there..
...
14
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5answers
310 views
How to avoid identifying myself in a review?
Occasionally I find myself currently reviewing a paper where I find that many of the criticisms I have are addressed in papers in which I am an author (and often as lead author).
I don't want to make ...
33
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5answers
1k views
What should raise red flags to detect fabricated data
In academia, there has been recently some cases that came to light of very well known scientists that have fabricated their data out of thin air.
In some instances these papers have been cited many ...
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8answers
1k views
why do academics write peer reviews?
I do not understand what good it does them. A professor said it gives opportunity to read papers he would not read on his own. I am sure there is more to it but I do not see what they gain by ...
6
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2answers
163 views
What do reviewers look for in a paper?
This may be a naive question but it would greatly assist me in preparing my first paper for a peer-reviewed journal.
I can identify at least 4 papers that I can extract from my recently completed PhD ...
10
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4answers
142 views
Is it a good practice to indicate the desired handling editor when submitting a paper?
In submission forms of academic journals, I often see the possibility to give names of desired / non-desired reviewers for the submitted papers. But very rarely I see fields for choosing an editor who ...
50
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6answers
1k views
Asked again to review a paper, when the authors don't wish to modify it
I have received a manuscript to review for a journal. The interesting thing is, I had already reviewed this article (exact same title, abstract and author list, almost exact same content) for another ...
4
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2answers
123 views
When writing a peer review is it better protocol to quote parts of the orginal work or paraphrase?
I am writing a peer review exercise and I am not sure when referring to specific parts of the paper whether it is better to quote or paraphrase them. What is the correct protocol on such this?
The ...
5
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2answers
197 views
Submitting first peer reviewed paper
I am not based in academia so unsure what the protocols (and the underlying and unwritten conventions are) in regard to getting my first paper published in a peer reviewed journal.
The paper will ...
7
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0answers
128 views
How do I write a good peer review? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Scope for the role of peer reviewer
For the first time, I have been asked to do a peer review. I have accepted, because the paper is well within my expertise, and I ...
22
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3answers
823 views
What to do if reviewers reject a paper without understanding the content
One of my friends submitted a paper to a reputable communications journal and received some reviews a week back. The paper was rejected, but the review comments were abysmal:
The language was so ...
20
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5answers
523 views
Should a reviewer critique language and text copy-paste issues?
While reviewing research papers, I often find that the author's English is not very good. Considering that English is not everyone's native language, I understand their difficulties, and I recognize ...
11
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1answer
185 views
Do journal editors disallow paper from college X to be reviewed by someone from college X?
What is the general opinion among editors about whether my paper should be submitted to review to academics from the same University/department? Will this ever happen? If it does happen, isn't this ...
12
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4answers
299 views
How much time should I spend on reviewing
I never tried to avoid becoming a sub-reviewer, and still, this question made me wonder. How much time should I, as a PhD student, spend on a review of a paper that my advisor gave me to do? Does the ...
37
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7answers
1k views
Is it common to review papers assigned to your supervisor?
Is it common to supervisors to email their students papers to review (which were apparently assigned to the supervisor, and not to the student). The field is Computer Science, but I would also like ...
19
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4answers
208 views
Measure of review bias
I was reading the other day this blog post, about "how to peer review", and one passage struck me:
Don't review like a grad student
Reviews written by graduate students are among the most ...
10
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1answer
260 views
How to write good Response Letters for the reviewers
I've spoken with many friends, and they all agree that response letters to reviewers should be written in the most kind, cordial and humble possible way.
Even if the reviewers are in an error, one ...
13
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5answers
392 views
Can I present the results of a paper that is currently under review?
Among the presentations in a major conference, I attended one where the author cited a paper (of theirs) under review in another major conference. Not only cited it, but showed some of its results.
I ...
7
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1answer
161 views
How do I respond to a review of the wrong version of my paper?
I have just had the revised version of a paper rejected from a well respected journal. However, one of the reviews is clearly a review of the original draft of the paper, rather than the revised ...
12
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2answers
147 views
Referee access to a not-yet-public URL cited in a paper?
I am reviewing a publication, in which the authors give the URL of an online tool (data analysis and sharing) they have developed. This URL has apparently not yet been publicized, as searching for it ...
0
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1answer
161 views
Can you mention that you were a paper reviewer after it has been published? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Are the referees of a journal allowed to reveal the title of the papers they review after the review process?
Suppose you were a single-blind paper reviewer (i.e. you ...
19
votes
2answers
430 views
Who can write a 'Review Article'?
At what stage of research career one can write a 'review article'?
Obviously a graduate student in the beginning stages cannot/may not write one. But how experienced does one need to be before ...
6
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3answers
233 views
Are abstracts confidential during the review process?
In an answer to a question about the confidentiality of reviews, I basically said you cannot reveal information about the review until the paper is publicly available. This question about revealing ...
14
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2answers
183 views
Are the referees of a journal allowed to reveal the title of the papers they review after the review process?
I am wondering if a referee can reveal the title of the papers he/she has refereed for a journal (either by talking about it in the pub, posting it on facebook or another mean) after the decision has ...
28
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4answers
911 views
Do you list journals you have reviewed for on your CV?
Is it acceptable to list the journals you have reviewed papers for on your CV? Is it common? Do you think it’s recommended?
On the one hand, it shows that you are engaged in this necessary part of ...
15
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2answers
2k views
What does a “major revision” mean?
I recently received the reviews/comments for an article submitted few months back to a journal. All the reviewers overall appreciated the content and the usefulness, but also suggested corrections ...


