Hi, I'm still new here. Actually I am looking for reviewers for my paper submission. Could you please advice me what I am suppose to do? Thank you in advance.
Most people here seem to be authors who say they are looking for reviewers for the manuscript they want to submit. I am very surprised if they mean by this that they are looking for reviewers who will send their opinion about the ms to the journal editor. This is incorrect, it is not the authors' responsibility to find reviewers.
Let me summarize my 30 years of experience in science publishing, as an author, and as a reviewer. Reviewers work for the editor, not for the authors. Some journal editors ask for authors to *suggest* reviewers. But this is only a suggestion. Most international journals don't even ask for this suggestion. They don't need to, they have the databases and the software to do this automatically. In any case, it is the editor's responsibility to choose the reviewers and you should never even suggest any unless *specifically* asked to by the journal. (And, I would advise, if you are asked to find, or even suggest, reviewers, check very carefully to make sure that the journal is really a top journal).
If you are asked to suggest reviewers by a top international journal, then use JANE http://jane.biosemantics.org/ to find authors who have published similar work. JANE lists the authors in order of relevance to the index terms you have put in.
from my side you should submit it to some journal, they will give you review report in 30-45 days. I am suggesting this because some unknown person might misuse your research for his own favor.
many journals ask you to list names of potential reviewers when submitting a publication. Is this what you mean? If so, choose people who are in your field and that you think would be able to do a good job evaluating your paper's merit. You do not need to get their prior approval before hand, or even know them. The journal may or may not use the people you select - but it helps them to know who your 'peers' are for the peer review process, since they may not have the expertise in your particular field to know themselves...
- do you want to have the language checked prior to submission? This is very important and will raise the threshold for rejection: a badly written paper is quickly rejected as reviewers are too busy to try and figure out what you are actually trying to say.
- do you want the contents checked? Usually it is better to find a senior researcher in your institution to advise you to a suitable reviewer. Should you want someone from elsewhere, you should tell us at least what field you are working in.
I did the language checking with my both supervisors. I do agree with your proposal and comments on that matter because we need convince those people who read our papers. TQVM.
you should mailed your paper to any authentic Journal . where their will be enough reviewer, after 35 or 40 days, they reviewed it properly and the results will be seen
one final thought (from my side) is to submit your manuscript to the journal with the highest impact factor (I.F.) - even if it gets rejected, you will get valuable feedback.
You can look around in your area of research and can select some researchers who have worked in a closer topic and you can refer them as the possible reviewers while submitting your paper to the journal. You can be a bit careful in selecting. If you select very senior resercher/professor as a reviewer, the chances of him reviewing will be less sometimes because he/she might be very busy in their own works and also sometimes they can be very tough..it all depends on how rigorous you want the review process to be..But, I always advise to suggest reviewers because the journal will like it most..Wish you all the best..
This is a very nice discussion here. Currently I search some advices on this topic too, and I have found few very useful posts on this theme. Personally I think that the posts "Guidelines for Suggesting Peer Reviewers for Manuscripts" of John E. Dolbow on iMechanica and "Advice: how to suggest referees in your cover letter to the journal editor" of Jeremy Fox on DynamicEcology could be quite useful for those who search some information about choosing reviewers for paper. Good look with your papers, fellow colleagues!
Thank you, Olga, for suggesting very nice links on the subject. But I found the advices stated there to be rather suggesting how not to do smth. Like why not to exclude someone from the reviewer list or whom not to include and why. Still, the problem to find a proper person, who corresponds to all of the requests at once, remains
a) he is not your friend or a colleague, but you somehow know him well enough to suppose he ll review your manuscript
b) has enough experience in the the field of your work
c) has no conflicts of interests with you
How is that generally possible? How do you get to know such person?
Dear Georgy, I think you have well summarized the main characteristics of a good reviewer. I suppose you can meet such a person at a conference, for example.
Since I am a second-year PhD student, I have no wide experience in publishing papers in peer-reviewed international journals. Usually I try to find a potential reviewer for my manuscript from papers in the field of my study or propose to the editor scientists I met at conferences.
Most people here seem to be authors who say they are looking for reviewers for the manuscript they want to submit. I am very surprised if they mean by this that they are looking for reviewers who will send their opinion about the ms to the journal editor. This is incorrect, it is not the authors' responsibility to find reviewers.
Let me summarize my 30 years of experience in science publishing, as an author, and as a reviewer. Reviewers work for the editor, not for the authors. Some journal editors ask for authors to *suggest* reviewers. But this is only a suggestion. Most international journals don't even ask for this suggestion. They don't need to, they have the databases and the software to do this automatically. In any case, it is the editor's responsibility to choose the reviewers and you should never even suggest any unless *specifically* asked to by the journal. (And, I would advise, if you are asked to find, or even suggest, reviewers, check very carefully to make sure that the journal is really a top journal).
If you are asked to suggest reviewers by a top international journal, then use JANE http://jane.biosemantics.org/ to find authors who have published similar work. JANE lists the authors in order of relevance to the index terms you have put in.
What "isn't strictly true" ? The Royal Soc's Open Science does allow open review - but only when both the authors and the reviewers agree (as their web site says). And Open Science is very much an exception among the top ranks of international journals..
As for your question, about 50% of a referee panel can be expected to turn down at least one ms in any single year - in Life Sciences that is. And of course, this is what they should do if they don't have the time, or the subject knowledge, to properly referee a manuscript.
Sometimes top journals as everything are not optimal, so you really can't bet everything in one article or conference only. So the best thing is send not only one work so everything works smoothly.
"... you really can't bet everything in one article or conference only ..." this means to be productive, i.e. multiple articles or multiple different conference contributions.
"... send not only one work ..." this means to send many works, not send the same work many times.
I hope you aren't using those false ideas wrongly with intention, be careful and read well what others write, and when replying consider you are replying to yourself Andrew Davis !
If you want to get blacklisted you won't ok. What you get is bad you can be banned from internet, journals, researchgate, and even some societies if you're found out!
This is why sometimes people don't contribute more to forums.
I am Editor of AFKĀR (Biannual research Journal of Islamic Studies) published by Institute of Social Sciences & Development, University of Karachi, Pakistan. Please visit https://www.afkar.com.pk
We have national & international reviewers. May I help you?
yes of course, you can select the Reviewers of your articles,the better to choose reviewers of references that you referred to in the problem statement because you select these references along with justifying why their problem statement need to contribute by submitting new methods or new work in your paper.
Hi, I was just wondering, if we suggest some reviewers, should we contact/notify them to tell that we suggest them as reviewers? Or it is not necessary?
Good to refer to someone who is an expert, for example myself. But if I am a co-author in teh paper then I cannot be reveiwer. Dr Moy Benjamin can be one such reviewer.
The jane biosemantics website shared above is quite useful in identifying potential reviewers for nomination, i've just used it for a submission i'm making and it made the process much easier. I would recommend it.
To find potential peer reviewers you can check the reference list of the manuscript, which is always a good starting point. It is also equally important to try and obtain a global perspective on a paper, so when narrowing down your list of potential peer reviewers try not to have them all from the same country.
Finally, once you have the names of your potential reviewers you need to find their contact details. Most of the time, if they have published recently, their latest article might have an email address or contact telephone number in the correspondence section. However, most of the time you will need to be quite proactive at using internet searches to obtain up-to-date contact details.
Yuo can look for somewho are in your field and that you think would be able to do a good job evaluating your paper's merit. Actually it helps jornal to know who your 'peers' are for the peer review process, since they may not have the expertise in your particular field.
I hope most of the reply and recommendations are valid to find potential reviewer, But we need to be more specific in suggesting reviewers based on their expertise which matches the content of your manuscript. It is not always the same that which ever reviewer you suggest will be reviewing the manuscript. Its better to find on google scholar the expertise who is publishing good article in your research area
As an assistant editor to various journals over 25 years and more I am still fascinated with why so many authors think it is their job to suggest referees. I have never come across journals that require this.
Some journals will request the author to suggest a reviewer (which really nullifies the notion of a double-blind review), whether they make use of these suggestions is worth finding out.
Thanks Godfrey. Obviously some journals do this otherwise this question wouldn't have been asked. What I want to know, however, is which journals are asking this. Are they of a particular type or particular subject areas ? Which journals are not mainting their own lists of referees ?
Fungal biology -Elsevier requests for three potential reviewers from the author Andrew Davis . I am also finding it difficult selecting reviewer for my articles
This information has been super helpful. I am currently searching for referees for my article and all your suggestions have shade some light. Thanks@all.
What Fungal Biology says is 'up to 3 referees' - that includes zero. It is a request and not a requirement. Personally, I would steer clear of journals that ask authors for referees - it's a practice far too open to abuse.
I think there is no needs for reviewers or referrals for a scientific paper. If there is no solid scientific reasons to prove that hypothesis in the paper is wrong, then, the paper should be published definitely. I think if Albert Enstein had to have referrals for General Relativity , we will never hear about it.
Hi,i am sorry for answering like this its my view a reviewers should be knowledgeable and I will go with what Andrew Davis says. This is not a job of an author. It’s the responsibility of the chief editor, Reviewers are supposed to assign by the editor board. But in some suitcases the Author are asked for Reviewers due to insufficient of experts in the species research in that particular journal. Why can’t you go for some other journal? Make sure that the journal is really good enough in your field of research. Thank you hope it may help you.
As Andrew Davis suggests, it is the job of the journal editorial board to select the reviewers. If suggestions are asked, the author may leave that section empty. If the reviewer suggestion section has been marked mandatory by the journal, the easiest way for an author is to consult references cited.
I used to find potential reviewers from the references that I have cited in my paper. I use ScienceDirect.com to get their email and organization based on the title I had.
You can suggest reviewers from those who are working in the same field with you (Usually those that are cited the most in your manuscript). However, ensure that you contact them first and ask if they are available and if you can suggest their names as this will fasten the review process of your paper. Besides, for high impact journals, the reviewers must be from different country than yours.
JANE, yes, http://jane.biosemantics.org/ (as in my answer of 02 Dec last year).
The question authors should ask themselves though is whether a journal that asks authors to suggest referees is a journal you want to publish in. From my 30+ years of working in science publishing and research it´s clear that well organized journals have their own lists of referees.
You can identify authors of articles from your reference list that were fundamental in forming your research question. I would suggest you select researchers who are active (past 2-3 years).
I search to find several papers in the journal, in which I would like to submit my manuscript. I propose the authors of these papers as the suggested reviewers. I think that my method for proposing reviewers is suitable because they are expert to review my manuscript.
To provide the answer in the simplest form, I should say that high quality journals have their own referee database and they will never ask anybody to suggest them the reviewers.
On the other hand, there are some publications which are about to extend or fill out their database and that's why they are asking for potential reviewers. But it doesn't mean that they are going to use the provided referees unless the suggested reviewer has a strong scientific background for the corresponding field of study.
it is very easy to search in relevant researchers who have been working in this area. Contact them by email and get their consent to be reviewer for the journal.
you can find several relevant papers in many journals, in which you can find the many authors in the relevant field.
You can select reviewers from a list of articles published in the field maybe from the list of your references. Be careful some journals do not accept reviewers from the same institution or those you have already published with as co-author.
This happened to me today. I chose people I respected, worked on the same or similar topic and whom I do not know personally. Respect the integrity of the process. Book publishers also often ask for possible reviewers. Makes me uncomfortable.
I am seeing some very important points. To add a question, does not the selection of the reviewer that the author seeks to impart affect the process? Why is it important to let him choose if the reviewer he chooses doesn't see? I mean through the publisher.
I am personally not in favor of choosing the potential reviewers for the paper. There should be no option for that while submitting the manuscript. It somehow looks unfair because authors choose their own buddies most of the time.
Thes best option is to chose it from your references list. He or she will be the experts in your field who can by their expert opinins give you the opportunities to further improve your manuscript even if they reject it.
The best option is to chose it from your references list. He or she might be the experts in your field, who can provide you with opportunities to further improve your manuscript.