I've just taken over as Editor of a journal and I want to put together a brief document highlighting what reviewers are looking for in papers. I have my own personal thoughts, but would like to know what you think is necessary for a paper to be published (and also what reviewers shouldn't concern themselves with).
For my part, here's what I think;
Dear Leon,
You consider the comments of the reviewers but your decision is final. Once you receive the MS from the reviewers go through minutely, make refinements and incorporate your own comments, if necessary, and give final touch to the MS once you receive back from the author(s).
One more important aspect. Always ask for the approval of the author(s) concerned before acceptance of the MS.
To provide feedback based on either: methodology OR content, or both of course.
Methodology would be for how the study was conducted, from the initial points of conception to the very end of submission. The reviewers' job is to pinpoint where there was lack of sufficient detail on a certain phase of the conduction of the study where risk of bias cannot be assessed. In case of a suspicion of risk of bias, it is the reviewers' job also to point to it so Editors keep it in mind, or occasional, for authors to do an additional step to mitigate that risk of bias.
Content relates to WHAT was actually addressed by this study. Reviewers' who are content experts with regards to a particular submission should answer the eternal question of whether or not the question asked in this article is actually worth asking and it was asked properly in order to find answers for it by doing this study. This also includes providing sufficient context to this question by making sure authors provided context of where it fits into what is already known about the topic in the available literature.
The following papers in relation to the guidance/suggestions/advice from the perspective of the reviewer/editor may be able to help/share.
- Davidson, A. J. and Carlin, J. B. (2008) Review article: What a reviewer wants, Pediatric Anesthesia, 18, 12, pp. 1149-1156.
- Eriksson, P., Altermann, W. and Catuneanu, O. (2005) Editorial: Some general advice for writing a scientific paper, Journal of African Earth Sciences, 41, 4, pp. 285-288.
- Heatwole, H. (2008) Editorial: a plea for scholarly writing, Integrative and Comparative Biology, 48, 2, pp. 159-163.
- Levy, M. and Grewal, D. (2007) Publishing perspectives from the editors, Journal of Retailing, 83, 3, pp. 247-252.
- Mitchell, J. E. and Le Roux, A. I. (2009) Publishing an article: What editors want, Progressio, 31, 1 & 2, pp. 76-96.
- Ortinau, D. J. (2011) Writing and publishing important scientific articles: A reviewer's perspective, Journal of Business Research, 64, 2, pp. 150-156.
- Varadarajan, P. R. (1996) From the editor: Reflections on research and publishing, Journal of Marketing, 60, 4, pp. 3-6.
As i a reviewer, i check the originality of work, methodology and deeper discussion (i.e. not only increasing/decreasing of the property).
Leon Black I am glad to note that you have put Item 3 in uppercase. That says it all. PUT YOUR WORK IN CONTEXT. That is the most important thing -- be it a research paper or 3-line poem like Haiku or even a good joke :)
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