As journal editors, we fundamentally believe in peer reviewing. Peer review helps make published papers higher quality. Objective experts and peers often see areas in a manuscript and research study that the authors and editors did not elucidate. Journals in general (and Family Medicine specifically) have a hard time finding peer reviewers. Doing a peer review takes time, is unpaid, and often feels like one more thing for already overwhelmed faculty. On behalf of the editorial team of Family Medicine, we are writing a series of blog posts about why we think you should sign up to be a peer reviewer (Family Medicine), how your expertise can contribute to the mission of the journal, and step-by-step instructions on how to construct a valuable peer review.
Why Was I Asked to Do This Review?
We often hear from early-career faculty that they don’t feel qualified to conduct peer reviews because they aren’t “experts.” Our Associate Editors aim to include a diversity of viewpoints in each manuscript. So, they may ask an expert to comment on the methodology or the statistics. But we also want input from our readers. Yes, you may not be a content area expert, but if you are a reader of the journal, your opinion is valuable. If you didn’t understand some of the paper, then other readers may also not understand. You should feel empowered to include comments to the editor about which aspects of the paper you feel qualified to comment on. I will often state, “I am not a statistician, but the numbers do not make sense to me.” If it doesn’t make sense to you, it may not make sense to others, so we want to know!
Getting Started
If you do not know where to start, go to the reviewer page on the journal’s website. There is a lot of material about how to do a peer review. Alternatively, you can ask a senior colleague or mentor for help. If you feel comfortable doing the review, then the first step is to read the paper. Most people recommend reading the paper through to the end the first time and not getting bogged down with comments or questions.
The first questions to ask yourself after you read the paper the first time are:
1. Did this make sense?
2. Does it add to the field?
3. Does it matter?
4. Is it written well?
Often, we don’t notice if a paper is written well, but we do see if it is written in an unclear manner or if there are typos or grammatical errors. Those errors, while easily corrected, usually signal that the manuscript needs more work.
The Second Time Through
After you have done a full read of the paper and answered some general questions to yourself, it is time to reread it. This time, when you read it, we want you to focus on all the details. We want reviewers to pay attention to the details of every section of the paper. The following two blogs will go section by section with descriptions of what to look for and how to provide feedback.
How to Organize Your Review
This is a matter of personal preference. Some reviewers organize their reviews by section. So, they start the review with comments on the title and continue with comments on the abstract, the introduction, the methods, the results, the discussion, the tables, the conclusion, and the references. Other reviewers prefer a more “free form” review, using bullet points or a numbered list to capture all the comments for each section. But, bottom line, we want reviewers to carefully assess all these sections of the paper. As editors, we must see in your review that you read the paper. A one-sentence review that is general, like “this was a great paper” or “this paper is not acceptable,” without comments on each section or other specific evaluative statements, is not helpful in the evaluation of a paper.
Tone and Goal of the Review
The overall goal of any peer review is to make the paper better. As such, we ask that you frame your feedback in a constructive manner and avoid disparaging comments. SS once had a reviewer say, “if the authors had only read the literature, they wouldn’t have made this mistake.” A better way of phrasing that same sentiment would be, “I suggest that the authors review these papers to get a different perspective on the subject.” These two phrases say essentially the same thing, but one is much more respectful. Remember, academic family medicine is a small community. Treat the authors as if they knew it was you writing the review, and keep your comments constructive and respectful.
The next two blogs will review how to evaluate specific sections of the paper in your review.
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