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I am a research student at the moment, but it has occurred to me that it could potentially be profitable to be a "pre-reviewer". I will explain what I mean.

A pre-reviewer is not an academic or someone who works at a university, but does independent review of papers that are to be submitted to conferences or journals, thereby maximizing its acceptability.

I believe this could be a profitable career path that also allows me to do research on the side, but is this feasible? Does such a career exist?

I am also not sure about the ethics of such thing. But this seems on par as using another peer to read your paper (at no cost, of course).

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    What would you be checking, the language or the technical content?
    – Allure
    Apr 29 at 7:49
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    Ideally both. Just what a normal reviewer what do, but you do it before the submission and might even provide a probability of acceptance. Of course this is conditioned on that the paper you are reviewing is within your expertise.
    – En Poverty
    Apr 29 at 7:53
  • Are you asking about a coaching-type job? I know that there are companies out there that provide university admissions consulting, helping prospective students hit all the necessary targets (how to write a targeted goals essay, how to assemble a portfolio, admissions test prep, etc.) before sending in their application. Are you asking about a similar role but with helping people prepare their papers for journal submission?
    – Robert Columbia
    Apr 29 at 18:29
  • @RobertColumbia See my definition of "pre-reviewer"
    – En Poverty
    Apr 30 at 0:23
  • What makes you think that a single person (in particular, you yourself) could be qualified to review papers in areas as disparate as geology, historical linguistics, differential geometry, and neurology, much less to "provide a probability of acceptance", much much less while "doing research on the side"? It seems that you could, at best, hope to provide an editing service and help with typesetting and typographic issues, but I would imagine most people may understandably be reluctant to have someone who does not understand their area edit their paper.
    – Adam Přenosil
    May 4 at 13:31

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The answer is yes, and here's an example from Enago.

Why wait for months to get feedback on your manuscript? Get a professional peer review in just 7 days! Our experts will thoroughly review your paper to identify areas for improvement and provide technical suggestions on possible pitfalls that speeds up your submission process.

I note Enago also has a webpage where you can register as a reviewer.

Two caveats: first, it's freelance work, which makes sense because the amount of papers in one's field that one can review ebbs and flows. Second, the best papers are probably not sent for this kind of review, simply because they don't need it.

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    Seems like a bit of a scam, actually.
    – Buffy
    Apr 29 at 10:40
  • Even the 'not best' papers are not sent there. I would be very leery of using such a service. And it seems unlikely that there would be a full-time (or even half-time) 'profession' working for them.
    – Jon Custer
    Apr 29 at 15:06
  • I've never used the service, so I cannot comment.
    – Allure
    Apr 30 at 2:11

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