Writing Exercise # 10

The process of the peer reviews is a process that is designed to review the validity and quality the originality of articles for publication. The peer review process stops the substandard and poor science so as to save time and money from publication. The reviewers are experts and have updated developments in their fields in order to evaluate and reject the plagiarized and duplicate papers. Besides, the peer review process can be used to publish the journal and to apply for the grant and standard textbooks. The process is also to increase the integrity of science.

However, the peer review is also related to some disadvantages. There may be criticism related to human activity based on perceived faults or mistakes. Editors are the connectors between the author and referee, and the editors have decision-making power. These can lead to the misuse of authority. Because there is no grading system in the peer-review process, the different journals have different standards in order to know the expertise and quality of the reviewers or editors. Besides, the peer-review process is time-consuming and expensive. The length of time in the peer-review process, many months is before the manuscript is approved. If the researchers have experiments to do, the process may be delayed and hampered. These disadvantages affect the credibility of the results of the process of peer-review.

The process of peer review has five steps which start at the submission of paper and end at the communicated decision (no revisions required for publication in the journal). The authors need to write up all information for a draft manuscript such as the relevant data, methods, observations, and discussion. Then the first step of peer review process is to submit the manuscript based on several factors including subject matter, the concern of researchers, the chance of earning funding, and connection of authors and editors. The second step is editorial office assessment. The editors check the compositions of the paper such as the focus on the clinical research, exciting research, and solid foundational research in order to make an initial decision. Based on journal’s philosophy and journal’s author guidelines the, the editors will reject the manuscript outright, so the authors need to submit their manuscript to another journal. If the editors accept the manuscript, the manuscript will get into step 3. The third step is to review the manuscript by 2 to 4 reviewers. The reviewers who have done researchers in fields related to manuscripts are chosen by the editor. The reviewers are anonymous to the authors, but the authors do oppositely. The reviewers read and evaluate the manuscript for scientific merit. The reviewers are usually based on questions such as the relevance of the question of the manuscript, the clear of the hypothesis and model, the manuscript is primary research or clinical research, and the support of data and analysis of data for the manuscript. The reviewers then summary their thoughts and evaluations. The reviewers will write a letter about their responses such as their concerns of a figure-by-figure breakdown to the editor, abstractions about the manuscript, and their recommendation for the editor whether the manuscript would be accepted or rejected. The fourth step is editor assessment of reviewers. After the editor receives the feedback from the reviewers, there are three things the editor can choose to do. First, they accept the manuscript without revision requirement. Second, they reject the manuscript. Or the third thing is to send the comments back to the authors for further revision of the manuscript. The editor will send a letter to the authors with their decision and comments. The fifth step is author’s revision. In case, the author revises their manuscript, they can contact to editors to announce their changes in the manuscript to solve the criticism. Then the author resubmits their manuscript and goes through the process of peer review again.