Describe the process of peer review to someone who does not frequently read scientific articles. In your response, consider the pros and cons of peer review and how that might impact the credibility of the results that come from that scientific article.
The process of peer reviewing scientific articles.
http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/howscienceworks_16
Peer-reviewed articles provide a trusted form of scientific communication. Even if you are unfamiliar with the topic or the scientists who authored a particular study, you can trust peer-reviewed work to meet certain standards of scientific quality. We rely on scientific peer reviewed articles to reference for other papers so they must hold up to scrutiny.
Many fields outside of science use peer review to ensure quality. Philosophy journals, for example, make publication decisions based on the reviews of other philosophers, and the same is true of scholarly journals on topics as diverse as law, art, and ethics. There is essentially two types of peer review closed and open.
Closed peer review is a system where the identities of the reviewers are not disclosed in the journal or to authors, and the identities of authors may not be disclosed, during the review process, to the reviewers. Of course, the reviewers can identify the authors after publication. Closed review works in two ways: single-blind and double-blind. Single blind review works by revealing the names of authors to reviewers while withholding the names of reviewers from authors. In double-blind peer review—as described above—identities of authors and reviewers are mutually withheld.
Open peer review, in contrast, operates a more transparent approach to peer review. Identities of authors and reviewers are mutually disclosed and, furthermore, reviews are sometimes published alongside the published articles. This system is becoming increasingly popular and is often applied by open access journals.
Peer reviewing will help develop you as a writer. Just think about all the ideas another person could think of on the topic your writing about. More minds contributing to the same thing the better. I think peer reviewing helps the writer in ways they might not have thought of when first writing. The purpose of writing a paper is having somebody else read it and make sense of it. The best way to make it appealing to many people is having a few people in same field read it and agree that other people should read it to.
The pros and cons of peer reviewing
There is no consensus on which of these peer review systems is best and it is agreed that both closed and open peer review have good points and bad; likewise single- versus double-blind peer review. The principle behind closed review is to minimize the bias of reviewers who may be influenced by the identity of the authors and to protect the reviewers from authors who may take exception to adverse reviews and rejections. The principle of only protecting reviewers operates in single-blind review. While it is always possible to protect the identity of reviewers during and after the review process, it is often possible for reviewers to identify authors by virtue of the work that is being reviewed.
Moreover, even when the author cannot be identified, reviewers may take exception to a line of work for reasons that are not concerned with the science or because the work competes with or refutes some of their own work. Therefore, the advantages of the system—minimizing bias and protecting identities—may be undermined by prejudice on behalf of reviewers.
As an ‘antidote’ to some of the issues raised by closed review, open review introduces transparency. By mutually revealing identities, the potential for bias by reviewers is attenuated by accountability to authors and readers. The advantages of this system may be outweighed by less-than-honest comments from reviewers who feel unable to be frank about the work.. On the other hand, the potential for unhelpful and inappropriate comments is reduced. Neither of the above systems of review-closed or open-is capable of completely obviating the problems they are designed to address.
The peer review process is extensive and complex. This is by design to make sure that the papers that make it to journals are held in high regard and hold validity across the board.
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