Original scientific paper
Scientific Peer Review: an Evaluation
Allan G. Farman
; School of Dentistry, The University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky 40292, USA
Zoltan T. Berky
; School of Dentistry, The University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky 40292, USA
Taeko T. Farman
; School of Dentistry, The University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky 40292, USA
Abstract
Objectives: Editors o f journals depend on the system of peer review to screen out poorly conceived, poorly executed and unoriginal manuscripts. This study was designed to assess the reliability and consistency of reviewers ’ responses with regard to manuscripts submitted for publication to a leading international dental journal. Methods: Three elements in the peer review process were investigated; namely: (1) reviewers' reports on manuscripts to the oral and maxillofacial radiology section of Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology, Oral Radiology and Endodontics were studied for consistency in the three reports for each of 78 consecutively submitted manuscripts rated as Ufull papers”; (2) ten previo sly accepted and ten previously rejected manuscripts were sent out for re-review by different panels of reviewers who were uninformed o f the prior review; and (3) questionnaires were sent to the editors o f ten leading dental journals to compare their peer review criteria and outcomes. Results: Reviewers were consistently reliable in their responses to questions regarding originality and scientific merit, and in delineating manuscript acceptability. O f manuscripts that were previously accepted eight o f ten were again accepted following a further double blind review. Of manuscripts that were rejected originally, six of ten were again rejected upon a second review by other referees. The use o f two reviewers was validated for accepted articles; but validity required at least three reviewers when manuscripts were rejected. The selected jo urnal editors reported acceptance rates of from 30 to 80% with publication waiting times form three to 24 months. Higher acceptance percentages generally were associated with greater delays in publication. Conclusions: Journal peer review is not perfectly reliable; however, it does serve the purpose of reducing the number of poorly conceived and poorly constructed research papers.
Keywords
journal editing; literature, dental; literature, scientific; peer review; publication; scientific method; publishing
Hrčak ID:
98274
URI
Publication date:
15.12.1997.
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