How to Write Answer of Reviewer Comments of Article

Last month, I talked almost some of the reasons that you might want to accept that invitation to review a review commodity. Let's say you found my argument persuasive; now what? The internet (and even this very blog) is full of suggestions of how to peer review scientific research, but advice for how to review reviews is scarce. In fact, the only specific advice for reviewing review articles I could observe was this single paragraph from Springer.

Yes, review articles are peer-reviewed!

Submitting to a Trends journal requires an affirmative from the editor in some form: either the editor reaches out to a potential author with an invitation to write an article, or the potential author submits a proposal for an article, which the editor chooses to invite for submission. Information technology's a common enough misconception that, because an editor has already given an article (or at least its topic and outline) the dark-green lite to submit, reviews don't need to exist reviewed and are simply accepted as a matter of course. That'southward not the instance at Trends—we need to verify a manuscript'southward scientific accuracy and interest to the broader research community, amid many other aspects—and information technology's not the instance at many other journals that publish reviews.

But I think the vastly different style and expectations of review articles in dissimilar journals get in tough to know what any periodical in particular is looking for: the encyclopedic and exhaustive Almanac Reviews, for case, surely enquire their reviewers to evaluate review manufactures differently from how we might at Trends. While this post is deliberately Trends-centric, I promise some of the advice is universally applicative to thinking about giving constructive feedback on any sort of review article.

What should I annotate on?

We construction our reviewer comment form to walk you through the aspects of a potential article that we discover virtually of import. I've recently clarified the Trends reviewer guidelines to make them more useful and informative, and I'd similar to describe my thought procedure in a little more particular here. (Even though you won't come across these questions if y'all've been asked to review a short commodity, they withal make upwards a helpful framework to guide your thoughts.)

Balance: For Review articles, you'll explicitly exist asked if the commodity provides a counterbalanced view of the topic. Here, we're trying to ensure that all of the electric current applications, ideas, and hypotheses are properly accounted for. Something we'd actually like to avert is a review that's glorified cocky-promotion: one that relies extensively on self-commendation and essentially reiterates the authors' ain positions from their prior publications.

Yous won't see this particular for Opinion articles. On one manus, Opinion articles should button some agenda and be associated with a personal hypothesis. They're non necessarily designed to give equal platforms to all of the ideas that are out at that place. Rather, they may be advancing ideas that are unorthodox or controversial. But on the other hand, authors of Opinions don't have carte blanche latitude to speculate wildly or propose unrealistic paradigms.

What we're asking you to exercise for Opinions is to determine whether the writer's proposal is sensible, given the existing literature on the topic, and whether competing hypotheses and the shortcomings of the proposed idea have at least been discussed. Sometimes, nosotros go reviewer comments that recommend rejecting an Opinion article simply considering the reviewer disagrees with the opinion that the authors have articulated. I personally don't observe this comment peculiarly useful: opinions are meant to stimulate debate, and if everyone in the field already held the same viewpoint, then the article would hardly be worth publishing.

Scientific accuracy: This ane is more straightforward. We'd like to know if the authors have interpreted and presented the relevant results correctly and if there are any contempo and critical references that might be missing. Trends articles are meant to be curtailed and to focus rather narrowly on research from the by few years, and then it is ofttimes impossible for an commodity to cite every single article always published on the topic.

This is where feedback from our reviewers is especially of import! Although we as editors endeavour to stay informed on all of the topics that our journals cover, y'all're the subject matter skillful. If yous think an author has misrepresented a item finding, defined a term incorrectly, or relied on an obsolete proposed mechanism, you know that meliorate than we do, and then please let u.s.a. know. Comments on important references to add or terminology to clarify are helpful besides.

We'd also like to hear your thoughts on the manuscript's figures. Are they easy to understand? Do they complement the message of the review?

Timeliness: Most of an commodity's references should be to master research from the by 2–5 years. Of course, this doesn't mean that any research article from 2010 or introductory review should be ruthlessly stricken from the References department. But a review that mostly refers to research conducted a decade agone might suggest a topic that's not of enough current involvement for the journal'due south readers to care about. And a review that just pieces together other reviews might be too far removed from the primary literature to provide a truly unique viewpoint.

Novelty: As I discussed last calendar month, this is probably the unmarried well-nigh characteristic aspect of Trends reviews. The manuscript you're reviewing should say something different and give a reader information that he couldn't observe elsewhere. What makes a manuscript sufficiently novel to publish in a Trends journal? That might exist as uncomplicated as "This is a topic that people care about now and hasn't been comprehensively reviewed withal." It could also be "Here'southward a new application for a technology, or an update to a pathway based on new testify." A proposed set up of best practices or unifying figure of merit for how to evaluate new results is certainly interesting as well.

A review that only lists experimental results without providing any synthesis, connection, or critique doesn't requite annihilation useful to its readers across a reasonably upwardly-to-engagement bibliography. Similarly, a review that concludes simply by observing "additional research is needed" is not as interesting equally one that posits which experiments should exist conducted or suggests a path frontward to commercialization or clinical translation.

Finally, if a similar review has been published lately, let us know. There may however exist room for another review on the same topic if it has a different message or intended audience.

Authoritativeness: Strongly multidisciplinary articles are wonderful, but sometimes the authors' primary expertise is in just i discipline. Let'due south say you're reviewing a review on an immunoassay that has emerged in the past couple of years, and you notice that the discussion of the applications is disquisitional and comprehensive, but the bones immunology underlying the analysis is limited and dislocated. This state of affairs would be a peachy time to propose to the editor that an boosted author, with a different groundwork from that of the original authors, could strengthen the manuscript.

Accessibility: We empathise that, as an good, yous're immersed in the field, but here, we'd like you to take a step dorsum and imagine that you haven't published dozens of papers on the topic. Would yous still be able to understand the manuscript? Nosotros desire you to comment on the suitability of the construction, the clarity of the take-home message (and the justification for writing the review in the first place), and whether abbreviations and acronyms are useful and standard or but confusing.

Is in that location anything I don't need to annotate on?

Every once in a while, I become comments from a reviewer that are one-3rd critique on the content and 2-thirds suggestions for usage, grammar, and punctuation. If you missed your calling as a copyeditor and honey commenting on these elements, great! It makes our jobs easier.

Merely I want to assure y'all that you shouldn't feel obligated to comment on these aspects. Every Trends commodity gets independent editorial comments in a procedure that nosotros call pre-revision. We focus in particular on the manuscript's clarity and suitability for the journal'southward audition, and we suggest passages for our authors to re-write or sections to re-structure. And then, once a manuscript is accepted, information technology's professionally copyedited and typeset, which means that every comma will be in its right identify upon publication.

Similarly, feel free non to worry well-nigh formatting, number of references, or word count—though if you call back a section (or entire manuscript) is as well long or short, that's useful for the states to know.

Finally, sometimes the paper that the authors wrote is not the one you would accept written. Nosotros inquire that y'all evaluate an article on its independent merit rather than comparison information technology confronting the arguments that you would have made or the catechism of literature you would have chosen to review. (If your perspective diverges from that of the authors, I and many of the other Trends editors would exist delighted to have you respond to the commodity in the form of a Letter of the alphabet.)

Putting it all together: What should I recommend?

Y'all'll be asked to provide a recommendation: have, minor revision, major revision (without boosted review), major revision and re-review, or reject. Only later considering all of the key aspects I've described higher up, how do y'all know which one to pick?

I propose a iii-pronged test. Imagine an boilerplate researcher who is interested in the areas covered by the journal that yous are reviewing for only is not an expert in the specific topic of the review paper.

• First, can she sympathize the review?
• 2nd, does the review give her an accurate and electric current representation of the scientific topic?
• And third, will she learn something unique from this review that she wouldn't acquire by reading another article?

A review manuscript that survives this scrutiny is worth publishing, albeit possibly with some revisions to clarify the language, tidy up the structure, or incorporate boosted references.

For even more than clarity, you lot might recollect of it this manner:

• Take ways that a manuscript meets those criteria equally-is, and the simply improvements that should be fabricated are to the language or formatting;
• Minor revision means that a manuscript meets those criteria but could still exist improved with amend figures, additional discussion, a stronger message, or technical clarifications;
• Major revision means that a manuscript currently doesn't come across the criteria but has a expert chance to once the authors take had the chance to revise it;
• Major revision with re-review means that a manuscript doesn't currently see the criteria, just the topic is interesting enough that you'd similar to give the authors the run a risk to come with something that does;
• And reject ways that the manuscript is then deeply flawed that it is unlikely to encounter the criteria even later on extensive revision.

I hope that these comments are useful—and that they've inspired you to consider reviewing manuscripts for the Trends journals. And if there are whatsoever other suggestions for reviewing review articles out in that location, we would dearest to hear your tips besides.

Posted by

Matt is the editor of Trends in Biotechnology, Prison cell Press's home for reviews in the applied biological sciences. His background is non so secretly in engineering rather than biology, but he hopes you won't hold that confronting him. He can ofttimes be constitute crafting and enjoying fine beverages (which is definitely biotechnology) and blogging about strategy game pattern (which is surprisingly like to managing a reviews journal).

Filed to Reviews, Peer review, Trends in Biotechnology, Get published, Cell Mentor

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Source: http://crosstalk.cell.com/blog/reviewing-review-articles-part-2-the-how