CFP: 7th Int’l Congress, Peer Review & Biomed Publ.

The Seventh International Congress on Peer Review and Biomedical Publication will be held September 8-10, 2013, in Chicago, IL. As with the previous Congresses, our aim is to improve the quality and credibility of biomedical peer review and publication and to help advance the efficiency, effectiveness, and equitability of the dissemination of biomedical information throughout [...]

Inscrutable Reviewers

In my work as a writing coach and editor for nursing faculty and doctoral students, I sometimes work with authors in interpreting inscrutable anonymous peer reviewers’ comments. As most of us know, the peer review process is not perfect, and we sometimes find that one reviewer says, ACCEPT, another says, REJECT, while a third says [...]

Peer Review in Scientific Publications

Readers of NursingWriting might be interested in the just-released report of the English House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, “Peer Review in Scientific Publications.” The report surveys the current landscape in order to document strengths and weaknesses of peer review and the effect of information technologies, and to make recommendations (including a discussion of alternatives [...]

Inside Higher Ed: Elsevier Wants Journal Without Peer Review to Adopt It

Reported today on Inside Higher Ed: Elsevier is pushing the only one of its journals that doesn’t use peer review — Medical Hypotheses — to start using peer review, Times Higher Education reported. The journal has to date published articles that its editor — Bruce Charlton, professor of theoretical medicine at the University of Buckingham [...]

Chronicle: Is the Peer-Review System Broken?

Daniel J. Myers, professor of sociology and associate dean for research, graduate studies, and centers in the College of Arts and Letters at the University of Notre Dame writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education, says that the peer-review system (both for journals and book publishers) is not working, overwhelming many faculty with excessive review [...]

Publishing Tips: Concerned About Peer Reviewers

One of the frequently confounding experiences that professors like you have had in scholarly publishing involves peer reviewers, whose comments sometimes conflict with each other or whose critiques are abusive or clueless. You are not alone. According to an article by Jeffrey Brainard entitled “Incompetence Tops List of Complaints About Peer Reviewers” in The Chronicle of [...]