Ten tips for expeditious reviewing of journal articles

As this is the last issue of Clinical and Experimental Optometry for 2022, I would like to extend my customary thank you to all of those involved in the production the journal, especially during the past two difficult, COVID-impacted years. Because of the necessary cessation or limitation of activity in university-based clinical and research laboratories during COVID, academics largely turned their attention to scientific writing. The number of submissions to the journal almost doubled during this period, placing a heavy workload on journal administrators, editorial staff, and reviewers of scientific papers. Fortunately, this massive influx of submissions is now beginning to subside.

The pool of academics and clinicians who are suitably qualified to review scientific papers is finite, and we have had to rely on the good will, patience and understanding of our network of journal reviewers over the past two years by way of increasing their workload so that the review process could continue, and a backlog of papers could be avoided. We had very little ‘push-back’ from reviewers. Perhaps their willingness to contribute is part of the quid pro quo academic philosophy; “if I am submitting twice as many papers to journals, then I ought to be prepared to review twice as many papers”. Whatever their thinking or philosophy, I thank all our journal reviewers for their selfless and important work during this trying period.

An expeditious approach

The extraordinarily high number of papers – and the commensurate increase in reviewer comments – flowing across my desk over the past two years has highlighted the various approaches adopted by reviewers in offering their opinions on submitted papers. Some reviews are extensive – in some cases approaching 3,000 words, which is almost as long as the submitted paper – offering detailed advice such as how various statements can be reworded, and highlighting every grammatical and punctuation error in the text and references. Some are extremely brief and of limited value – perhaps a single sentence offering unsubstantiated advice as to whether or not a paper should be published.

There are no absolute ‘rights ways’ or ‘wrong ways’ of writing reviews of scientific papers. Nevertheless, after thinking about this further, observing various examples of good and bad reviewing practices, and reflecting on my own extensive experience as a journal reviewer, I have devised the following set of ten key tips for undertaking expedient and useful reviews:

• The first question to ask is “Will this be an important contribution to the literature?” The answer can quickly be found by carefully reading the title of the paper, and then reading the ‘Conclusion’ in the abstract.

• Consider the title of the paper. It should be succinct, punchy, and free of abbreviations and redundant text. Offer a suggested alternative if the title fails this test.

• Be wary of negative results, for which the bar for acceptance is raised. Negative results can be very important, but these need to be statistically validated by an appropriate power analysis, and the importance of the negative result clearly articulated.

• If positive results are being reported, verify that the sample size is validated by an appropriate power analysis, and that the experiment is masked and randomised.

• Ensure that the authors have adhered to ethical requirements relevant to the type of research they have undertaken.

• For reviews and meta-analyses, verify that the authors have adhered to PRISMA guidelines.¹

• Offer one or two brief sentences on the adequacy of the following key components of the paper: Abstract – is this succinct and informative, capturing the essence of the work? Introduction – is the research put into a proper context and is the aim of the paper clearly stated? Methods – is the experimental approach complete and properly explained? Are the various sample sizes clearly laid out? Results – are the results clearly presented and understandable, with well laid out tables, graphs and/or figures? Information in tables should not be duplicated in figures. Discussion – has the importance of this work, and the way in which it adds to the existing literature, been properly explained? Have the authors been candid about strengths and limitations of their work?

• Check the layout of the references – have they been properly formatted in accordance with journal style? Are all appropriate references cited, or are there any important references missing? If the referencing is sub-standard, recommend that the references be tidied up. It is not the responsibility of the reviewer to highlight every error in the reference list; the onus is on the author to get this right.

• Comment on the overall quality of English grammar and adherence to the conventions of scientific writing. Some allowances can be made if the paper is authored by researchers for whom English is not their first language; however, the paper must be intelligible so that the science can be understood, and if this is not the case, advice should be offered for the authors to seek assistance in this regard.

• Conclude by offering clear confidential advice to the editor as to whether the paper is suitable for publication, and briefly state the key reasons underpinning this advice (referring the editor back to the full review for details).

General advice

If a paper being reviewed is generally sound, requiring relatively minor revisions to bring it up to publication standard, the review comments generally need not exceed 300 words. Such a review may only require an hour to complete. If, however, the paper requires extensive revision, or is being recommended for rejection, the review comments would necessarily be more extensive, perhaps 600 words or more. Such reviews may take two hours to complete. In general, I would consider spending more than three hours reviewing a journal paper as being beyond the call of duty.

My view is that it is not the responsibility of reviewers to correct every actual or perceived grammatical error, nor is it appropriate for reviewers to suggest how sentence construction should be altered, unless of course this is required for scientific clarity. All authors have unique writing styles, and allowances must be made for this.

While on the one hand specific advice as to why an experimental design is fundamentally flawed is important, gratuitous advice on how an even better experiment might have designed is unwelcome. Nor is it particularly helpful to offer advice as to what additional experiments could have been conducted. There are many ways in which an experiment can be designed or conducted, but it is the approach adopted by the author that is being tested. As long as the experimental approach is appropriate for addressing the hypothesis being advanced, assessment of the paper must be restricted to the work undertaken by the author.

Conclusion

Hopefully, by adhering to these guidelines and adopting an expeditious approach to critiquing scientific papers, reviewers will be more likely to consider this task as an enjoyable and important contribution to scientific discourse, rather than a time-consuming, burdensome chore.