What is peer review?

According to Gannon (2011), peer review is a review process that has been using frequently to determine the achievement of academic which an author’s article is reviewed by other author from the same field. Academic publishing units mainly use peer review method to select and filter manuscript submissions and academic research funding providers also widely use peer review method to determine whether to grant funds or provide scholarship to the author.  In other words, peer review is to allow various experts from the field that related to the article title that awaiting to be published to provide their opinions in order to assist editors in the process of judging whether an article is suitable for publication.

Peer review such as single blind review is a type of peer review where the author does not know who the reviewers are and has been using frequently in peer review among science journals. Moreover, social science and humanities journals were most common in using the double blind review where the reviewers do not know about the authors, and vice versa. Open peer review referred to the identity of the author and the reviewers are known by all participants and the article and the review can be published together in final article if only the article is acceptable (Wiley, 2018). 

Peer review has its advantages and disadvantages when it applied as a critique tool. Peer review does allow the reviewer to make judgment about the quality of an article of research work although the process is not perfect. Any personal biases and pre-set ideas from the equation are able to be removed through diversified opinions has been brought to the table. Not only journals have applied peer review but also standard textbooks of University and grant applications (Shuttleworth, 2018). The delivery process of excellent information to students was identified by the peer review process.

               However, there are still some existing limitations of peer review. Reviewing a paper is a fairy exhausting task and the editorial office does not provide compensation to those reviewers for it, which makes some professors unwilling to spend too much effort in this process.  There are many reviewers who were not fair enough and subjective at the time processing peer review (Shuttleworth, 2018). This is one of the reasons why the scientific community distinguishes factions from the others and draws relations with each other for public relations. When an author is familiar with many peers, he is more likely to receive a positive evaluation in peer review.

 

               Although some biases appealed in the peer review process, but valuable judgments are matter for public contents to prevent an article over estimated. There are a lot of efforts that needed to be paid to publish an honorable article due to the strict level of peer review. On other hands, there will be some successful peoples that overcome a series of opposition and finally their persistence has leaded them to immortal achievement, such as the founder of Alibaba, Jack Ma, and George Walton Lucas Jr, director of Star Wars.

References

Gannon, F. (2018) The essential role of peer review. EMBO Reports, May, 2(9), pp.743. [Online]. Available from:NCBI Education. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1084042/ [Accessed 13 April 2018].

Wiley. (2018) Types of Peer Review. [Online]. Available from: https://authorservices.wiley.com/Reviewers/journal-reviewers/what-is-peer-review/types-of-peer-review.html [Accessed 13 April 2018].

Shuttleworth, M. (2018) Advantages of Peer Reviews. [Online] Available from: https://explorable.com/advantages-of-peer-reviews [Accessed 13 April 2018].

Shuttleworth, M. (2018) Disadvantages of Peer Reviews. [Online]. Available from: https://explorable.com/disadvantages-of-peer-reviews [Accessed 13 April 2018].