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Where to publish your research article: Roles in peer review

Information and resources to help you make important decisions about where to publish your research.

The different roles in the peer review process

Role of the AUTHOR

  • Subject oneself to the discipline of the periodic publication of completed parts of work in a format that requires extreme rigour, reproducibility or results, appropriate reference to the work published previously by others, robust interaction with critically constructive reviewers and editors,  and a tight relationship between the evidence presented and the conclusions drawn therefrom.

The role of the EDITOR

  • Provide editorial policy which is accessible to authors
  • Select appropriate peer-reviewers
  • Assess review reports
  • Decide whether publish, allow improvements; refuse
  • Statistical review
  • Ensure alignment with focus of journal
  • No misconduct (presentation of data, graphs and figures not published elsewhere, plagiarism, inconsistent data sets)
  • Manage errata and retractions
  • Contextualise findings in editorials and supplementary sections

 The role of the PEER REVIEWER

  • Scrutinise methods and results ito consistency, interpretability, reproducibility
  • Identify gaps in interpretation and findings
  • Suggest improvement in terms of style, length and focus;
  • Assess originality and proper citation and referencing of previous studies
  • Contest unjustified conclusions
  • “Place” the work in the existing matrix of knowledge in the relevant area or field