What are the steps to make a good review of scientific papers? Who can advise me? Can we use a software for review of a paper? If so, is there a free software?
According to Robert L. Balster, a good reviewer helps the Editor achieve the goals of peer review. It is important for reviewers always to try to take an author's perspective and to remember that publishing is vitally important to authors. Sometimes an author needs one more publication to ensure a promotion or to receive a favorable review on a grant application. Authors may be performing research in a highly competitive area where having a paper accepted for publication is critical evidence of their precedence. Reviewers should easily be able to imagine an author's response to a careless review or one that is delayed by months.
To make a good review of a paper, reviewers should do the following:
•State the paper's main strengths and weaknesses. Start the comments to authors with your views of the main strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript. Generally, after reading this section the Editor should understand the basis for your final recommendation (which you should not include in the comments to authors). Make your statement of weaknesses as constructive as possible and suggest possible avenues by which the author might address the problems in a revision. Those weaknesses that are inherent in the design and execution of the study cannot be fixed in a revision, so you can expend less effort in telling authors how they should have done their study.Even if you recommend rejection you should provide constructive suggestions for improving the paper in the event that the Editor gives the author an opportunity to address the weaknesses. Many reviewers organize the comments to authors by describing the strengths and weaknesses of each of the sections of the paper (e.g. introduction, methods, results, and discussion). Try to balance technical merit with scientific significance. This balance has been the subject of debate in the grant review process for many years, with many believing that technically competent but scientifically unimportant or uncreative proposals have an advantage, even though they may lack significance. It is important for reviewers of journal publications to identify particularly important or creative papers and, conversely, to indicate if in their judgment a paper represents only a minor advance in the field.
•Provide specific suggestions for improvements. Detailed suggestions for improving the writing in the paper, the figures or the tables are very helpful to both the Editor and the author. Identify paragraphs or sentences that are unclear, point out areas where information is missing and explain how the writing can be clearer. If you have trouble understanding the paper there is a good possibility that other readers will as well. Reviewers familiar with the journal's formatting requirements can point out departures for correction. Reviewers can also identify relevant publications that should have been cited by the author. It is important for reviewers to appreciate that journal space is limited and that articles should be as short as they can be while still covering the necessary material. Reviewers can be especially helpful in pointing out how to shorten papers, perhaps by eliminating tables or figures or summarizing data in text. Introductions are often longer than they need be: point out nonessential background information that can be edited out. Similarly, discussions can be too speculative or focused on minor aspects of the study results.
•Comment on language issues. There are problems faced by authors having to submit their papers to English-language journals when English is not their first language. Reviewers cannot be expected to correct language problems. When assigned a paper obviously written by a non-English speaker, reviewers should do their best to focus on the science being presented and simply point out areas where language usage needs to be improved. There are various means by which authors and editors can handle this problem, so reviewers should not be biased in their recommendations based on poor English language usage. For example, some journal publishers provide language assistance, or the Editor can request that the author seek help from a native English speaker if the paper is likely to be accepted.
•Avoid unconstructive comments. There are some things that do not belong in comments to authors. First and foremost are pejorative comments about authors or the work. Reviewers should strive to be constructive at all times. Editors may remove overly personal criticisms or other material that insults the authors, their institution, or their geographical location. Jokes and witty remarks also do not belong in comments to authors. Editors may appreciate them in comments to the Editor, but for authors this is serious business. They may perceive such remarks as a lack of serious intent by the reviewer. Unless the journal uses unblinded reviews, reviewers should not reveal their identity in the comments to authors. Personal pronouns can provide clues to the reviewer's identity. Reviewers often provide authors with several of their own publications that they feel should have been cited, leading the author to suspect who the reviewer is.
If you are asking about the procedure or format to follow, this link includes some basic points to be followed:
http://www.bcl.hamilton.ie/~barak/how-to-review.html
(i) Well, it depends on the type of the paper; conference, journal, etc.. In general many good conferences provide reviewers with a short manual. I have attached a link that contains reviewing manual for a DAC paper which is a quality Computer/Electrcial Eng. conference.
(ii) And though you can find a citation map generator software, I don't think you can find a complete reviewing package. There are proprietary tool to under covers plagiarism and auto-generated softwares such as "snarXiv ", however, I have not seen an automated reviewing tool: http://www.nature.com/news/publishers-withdraw-more-than-120-gibberish-papers-1.14763#comment-1260990578 )
https://www.google.it/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&ei=GOVUU8zkOOHMygOXhID4Dw&url=http://www2.dac.com/46th/PDFs/How_To_Review.pdf&cd=1&ved=0CCcQFjAA&usg=AFQjCNGY-c0taeQ0sxa924ES6PuW8ErQbw&sig2=QYekBYnmgJb4wiGaZjyQRw
Up to my knowledge there is no such software to review a paper. Reviewing a paper depends upon its technical content, writing skills, supportive discussion and feasibility or practical applicability of the research. This can not be done by any software... yes one natural software is there.... "Technical Expertness of a Reviewer".
A good and concise description of the most effective peer-review skills can be found in Table 1 of this free access paper:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5543492_Inquiry_learning._Integrating_content_detail_and_critical_reasoning_by_peer_review?ev=prf_pub
Article INQUIRY LEARNING: Integrating Content Detail and Critical Re...
According to Robert L. Balster, a good reviewer helps the Editor achieve the goals of peer review. It is important for reviewers always to try to take an author's perspective and to remember that publishing is vitally important to authors. Sometimes an author needs one more publication to ensure a promotion or to receive a favorable review on a grant application. Authors may be performing research in a highly competitive area where having a paper accepted for publication is critical evidence of their precedence. Reviewers should easily be able to imagine an author's response to a careless review or one that is delayed by months.
To make a good review of a paper, reviewers should do the following:
•State the paper's main strengths and weaknesses. Start the comments to authors with your views of the main strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript. Generally, after reading this section the Editor should understand the basis for your final recommendation (which you should not include in the comments to authors). Make your statement of weaknesses as constructive as possible and suggest possible avenues by which the author might address the problems in a revision. Those weaknesses that are inherent in the design and execution of the study cannot be fixed in a revision, so you can expend less effort in telling authors how they should have done their study.Even if you recommend rejection you should provide constructive suggestions for improving the paper in the event that the Editor gives the author an opportunity to address the weaknesses. Many reviewers organize the comments to authors by describing the strengths and weaknesses of each of the sections of the paper (e.g. introduction, methods, results, and discussion). Try to balance technical merit with scientific significance. This balance has been the subject of debate in the grant review process for many years, with many believing that technically competent but scientifically unimportant or uncreative proposals have an advantage, even though they may lack significance. It is important for reviewers of journal publications to identify particularly important or creative papers and, conversely, to indicate if in their judgment a paper represents only a minor advance in the field.
•Provide specific suggestions for improvements. Detailed suggestions for improving the writing in the paper, the figures or the tables are very helpful to both the Editor and the author. Identify paragraphs or sentences that are unclear, point out areas where information is missing and explain how the writing can be clearer. If you have trouble understanding the paper there is a good possibility that other readers will as well. Reviewers familiar with the journal's formatting requirements can point out departures for correction. Reviewers can also identify relevant publications that should have been cited by the author. It is important for reviewers to appreciate that journal space is limited and that articles should be as short as they can be while still covering the necessary material. Reviewers can be especially helpful in pointing out how to shorten papers, perhaps by eliminating tables or figures or summarizing data in text. Introductions are often longer than they need be: point out nonessential background information that can be edited out. Similarly, discussions can be too speculative or focused on minor aspects of the study results.
•Comment on language issues. There are problems faced by authors having to submit their papers to English-language journals when English is not their first language. Reviewers cannot be expected to correct language problems. When assigned a paper obviously written by a non-English speaker, reviewers should do their best to focus on the science being presented and simply point out areas where language usage needs to be improved. There are various means by which authors and editors can handle this problem, so reviewers should not be biased in their recommendations based on poor English language usage. For example, some journal publishers provide language assistance, or the Editor can request that the author seek help from a native English speaker if the paper is likely to be accepted.
•Avoid unconstructive comments. There are some things that do not belong in comments to authors. First and foremost are pejorative comments about authors or the work. Reviewers should strive to be constructive at all times. Editors may remove overly personal criticisms or other material that insults the authors, their institution, or their geographical location. Jokes and witty remarks also do not belong in comments to authors. Editors may appreciate them in comments to the Editor, but for authors this is serious business. They may perceive such remarks as a lack of serious intent by the reviewer. Unless the journal uses unblinded reviews, reviewers should not reveal their identity in the comments to authors. Personal pronouns can provide clues to the reviewer's identity. Reviewers often provide authors with several of their own publications that they feel should have been cited, leading the author to suspect who the reviewer is.
I think the question has been answered in detail I want to complement the above answers by the subsequent text.
A very important thing in reviewing process to avoid any sort of bias-ness is not to indulge in finding the profiles of authors, especially for single blind review.
In complement of the above answers, consider the following pages:
http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/hcd/reviewing.html
http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~cs656/alan-meier.pdf
If you visit the websites of a few top journals you can get a quick hint of what to take into consideration while reviewing a scientific paper. There is in principle not such thing as a software to review papers. Things to consider, in brief are: beware of authors who claim moee than they offer in thier paper, pay attention to the grammar and I conciseness of the paper, the scientific relevance and added value of the work compared to what is already known, the choice and well of methods to addreds specific research objectives, ..... these are just a few. I am sure, more can be found online, combined with the above suggestions from the others should help. Good luck.
I found this article helpful:
http://twp.duke.edu/uploads/media_items/scientificarticlereview.original.pdf
I think objectivity and scientific relevance are key, not forgetting clarity, grammar etc.
I think that in first place the reviewer need to know the topic of the paper. Second also know the state of art around the topic. Then analyze the experimental techniques and the equipment use, how to present and discuss the results, and the strongth of the conclusions. Is very important to the creativity grade of the work and the order and the order and the way in which the paper is written. Finally for me are very important present the results with very clear diagrams and graphics.
I forgot something very important: the using of design of experiments (DOE) and the application of estadistics to analize the results too.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Psychology