I’ve been doing some work. How don’t get me wrong, I love literature work. But I am finding it all a bit same old same old right now. All the papers read the sme, even though they have different things to say. Yawn. I think I have an explanation for why that’s so. There’s a […] … learn more→
Tag Archives: Peer review

Familiarity and peer review

How does open assessment renew the scientific conversation?
The polarization of the discussions but also the scale of the public health issues in the debate on the scientific reliability of preprints have not always allowed the general public to grasp the importance of the peer review process – also called “evaluation” – for the functioning of the scientific community. The publishing model in today’s academic […] … learn more→

Style, tone and grammar – native speaker bias in peer reviews
Peer review is a central part of academic publication. The process of back and forth between authors and reviewers is meant, in part, to ensure the quality and novelty of articles. Many journals use what is known as a double-blind process in peer review – neither the authors nor the reviewers know each other’s names. […] … learn more→

Reviewers should stop doing the market’s dirty work
I’m planning some renovations in the house, so I’m learning about party wall surveyors. Their role is to resolve disputes between neighbours. But, strikingly, no matter who appoints them or pays for their services, party wall surveyors do not act on behalf of either neighbour. Rather, they act “for the wall”. Science, too, is a […] … learn more→

Electronics journal secretly retracts 29 articles
Our “peer review” system of publishing research is clearly highly flawed. In less objective fields like psychology, past half of such published research has been shown to be not reproducible. Some of this research has been foundational to psychology, such as the famous Stanford Prison Experiment…despite the fame, it’s a fraud. In medicine, we also […] … learn more→

How much do you really understand about the peer-review process?
Every research-active academic is familiar with the process of peer review. Certainly, there are differences between disciplines, and debates over double-blind, single-blind and open (in all its different forms) continue to rage. But, fundamentally, most academics with whom I speak hold up peer review as the “gold standard” to which we should subject work. Yet, […] … learn more→

Here’s how competition makes peer review more unfair
A scientist can spend several months, in many cases even years, strenuously investigating a single research question, with the ultimate goal of making a contribution – little or big – to the progress of human knowledge. Succeeding in this hard task requires specialized, years-long training, intuition, creativity, in-depth knowledge of current and past theories and, […] … learn more→
Will post publication peer review keep scientific research in check?
When it comes to complex, scientific findings, credibility is a must — which is why post publication peer review is becoming more common. It’s no surprise that the Internet can be filled with sketchy, sometimes half-baked theses, often based more on assumptions than fact. But in a sea of noise and falsehoods, there are certain […] … learn more→
Peer review: Problems to watch
Let’s face it: The traditional peer-review process was not meant for a digital age. It needs to be altered (not abandoned) so that it once again has a consistently useful function, working as something other than a wall to be breached. It needs to help move the best of scholarship to the fore while providing […] … learn more→