Samual - for me it's about 'giving back to the academic community'. I've had good feedback from reviewers to enhance my publications in the past - and continue to receive it. If I am in a position to do the same - then I will do. I review for over 40 international peer-review journals - of all different shapes and sizes. It's also about supporting those publications and their voluntary editorial boards etc. To me - it's a moral issue. I'm an active member of Publons, as well, and a member of their Academy for supporting new reviewers.

If you agree to review paper, each paper will give you different learnings. Along with, a good connection will appear with the jounals.

Samual - for me it's about 'giving back to the academic community'. I've had good feedback from reviewers to enhance my publications in the past - and continue to receive it. If I am in a position to do the same - then I will do. I review for over 40 international peer-review journals - of all different shapes and sizes. It's also about supporting those publications and their voluntary editorial boards etc. To me - it's a moral issue. I'm an active member of Publons, as well, and a member of their Academy for supporting new reviewers.

I agree with Dean Whitehead (it is difficult not to be, for his considerable authority in the scientific field). When I receive a peer-review request, I gladly accept. (If it is in my field of competence). Although this activity takes time because I believe it is part of being a member of a scientific community. It is a moral issue as Dean says, to be carried out with great responsibility. At the same time it is also 1) an excellent opportunity to further increase one's knowledge, 2) a way to improve one's style of writing an article (to correct others, one must be willing to correct oneself), 3) contribute to the development of knowledge in one's field of research.

I too agree with Dean and Nicola. I see it as fulfilling a social responsibility for the smooth growth of science/knowledge. I have experience in submitting to journals and rejections due to the unavailability of reviewers or very late decisions due to difficulty of finding appropriate reviewers. In both cases, I was disappointed than rejecting an article, because of the flaws of the article. Situations like this always discourage authors. Therefore, whenever I receive an article to review, I always try to accept the invitation if I have time to complete it within a reasonable time span and if I have adequate knowledge to review it. This volunteer contribution allow to steer the publishing process smoothly.

Moreover, as others said, the experience, recognition, and new knowledge we gain are always helpful to improve our own career.

Thank you Dean for the words of motivation. I'll admit that it is mostly for benevolance ("giving back") that I review papers, and I appreciate Publons for providing recognition to reviewers. In any case, I wish that more authors would invest the time or financial resources to have their papers edited for grammar before submitting. In addition to a lack of time, a major reason I decline invitations to review is poor grammar within the paper title and/or abstract.

I agree with the views expressed so far about "giving back" to the research community.

An alternative view centres on the fact that most journals are run by large publishing houses and are commercial organisations. It could be argued that they are utilizing our time and our hard-won and costly expertise without any recompense to the reviewer, and with the aim to make profits for their shareholders. One could also ask the question of whether our own employers approve of our free provision of expertise which ultimately ends up with another organisation profiting financially?

Altruism is a wonderful concept, but should it apply to commercial organisations which are happy to rely for their existence on the expertise of its unsalaried employees, i.e. us?

Reviewing papers allows you to build a reputation in the community, get an extra items to put in the CV, get the opportunity to see a preview of new work in your field....

Dear Basmah, yes, I agree with you. This is a positive benefit of the reviewing process. But there is also that elephant in the room. We know it is there, but no-one talks about it.

Please see the following link

https://faculty.washington.edu/garyhs/docs/nobarany-JAIST-Review.pdf

Best Regards Samuel Clark Ligon

To get updated with the recent work in your filed.

To get acknowledged by Publons

Technical Report WoS Reviewer, Publons, Gomaa A. M. Ali

Another reason why I review is because I know or at least recognize the name of one of the authors. In which case, the work is generally highly relevant to that of my own.

It seems that the elephant in the room is still not being discussed! Do we really wish to do unpaid work for commercial companies?

Thank you D. Andrew S. Rees . Traditional publishers offer 1-3 months free access to their journals. Since 80% of all reviewers are academics and already have access to the journals, this seems to be little more than a symbolic gesture. Funny enough, waived access fees was not even mentioned in the article posted by Osama Rahil on motivations for reviewing. In the case of open access publishing houses, this means of recompensation is not possible. Instead they offer credit good towards the costs of publishing in their journals. This can actually be a pretty good offer, and traditional publishers (who also have gold open access journals) could do this as well.