In order for an author to get their work published in a scientific journal, they must go through the peer review process. The first step to begin this process is submitting an article or paper to their chosen journal. These journals range in specificity of subject matter and access to the materials published in certain journals are often limited by subscriptions, which can result in the availability of these papers and corresponding research being contained within the scientific community. The prowess of the journal in question can also lend to a more rigorous peer review process, and despite some efforts towards transparency, social and political bias can and do play a role in the rejection or acceptance of a submitted article. This potential for bias can be negative in that the work of someone with a special social connection, might bump out the potential publishing of more important work that would have a more global impact. The high stakes environment of publishing and journal popularity might also pressure authors into falsifying results or not giving appropriate credit to those involved, which results in false information and a waste of everyone’s time. Integrity is at the heart of good science and the moment when the pressures to publish, often paired with specific jobs or potential funding, supercede honesty in experimental results, the negative impacts of that decision are infinite. It tarnishes the potential of future technologies and understanding and it lends to a distrust in the scientific field by the general public.
After submission of the article, the editor of the journal will screen the paper, either rejecting it or sending it on to the peer review. The rejection and or forwarding of the paper by the editor is based on questions surrounding the novelty or importance of the subject matter, as well as how it reflects both the direction of the publishers and the philosophy of the journal. If the paper makes it past the editor, it moves on to the actual “peer review”. The peers (typically three or four people) often specialize in the field or subject related to the submitted paper and are chosen by the journal editor. While the author can make recommendations as to who may or may not be reviewers for their work, the reviewers are anonymous to the author. While this process is partially blinded, I think that anything less than a double blinded set up – where both author and reviewer remain anonymous – can result in bias that might sway the ultimate destination of the paper in question. I honestly think that bias can potentially happen in the first step when the editor initially screens the paper, and that being unable to see the author or the institution which the paper is coming from would be the best methodology for this practice.
After the editor screening and being moved forward, the chosen reviewers then assess the paper for scientific integrity, with regard to experimental design, the resulting data and its meaning, as well as its clarity in the question it poses and how it answers it. The review process is highly critical and the paper goes back to the editor, where they can reject it, accept it as it is or send it back to the authors with requested revisions, the latter of which is most common. The actual peer review should be the most important part of this process, however the bias discussed previously has probably resulted in a lot of research not being published, while allowing work of lesser merit to be made available to the scientific community.
