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What are the advantages of publishing a research paper?

Publishing a research paper can have many advantages for researchers, including: Career advancement, professional recognition, opportunities for collaboration, increased visibility, impact on society, credibility and trust, professional development, inspiration for future research, and contribution to the field. It can help researchers to establish themselves as experts in their field, open doors to new opportunities, and contribute to the advancement of knowledge and understanding in a specific field.

• Career Advancement: Publishing a research paper is often a requirement for academic promotions and tenure. It can also help researchers to establish themselves as experts in their field and to gain recognition for their work. This can lead to new opportunities for advancement and can help researchers to build a reputation for high-quality research.
• Professional recognition: Publishing a research paper in a reputable journal can lead to professional recognition and prestige, both within the academic community and outside of it. This can open doors to new opportunities, such as funding, collaborations, and speaking engagements.
• Opportunities for collaboration: Publishing a research paper can lead to opportunities for collaboration with other researchers and institutions, both within the researcher’s field and across different fields. This can help to further the research and accelerate progress.
• Increased visibility: Publishing a research paper can increase visibility for the researcher and their work, which can lead to new opportunities, funding, and collaborations.
• Impact on society: Publishing a research paper can have a positive impact on society by contributing to the advancement of knowledge and understanding in a specific field. This can lead to new discoveries, technologies, and understanding that can improve people’s lives.
• Credibility and trust: Publishing research papers in reputable journals lends credibility to the researcher and the research, and can increase public trust in the researcher and their work. This can help the researcher to secure funding, collaborations, and other opportunities.
• Professional development: Publishing a research paper is a process that requires the researcher to conduct a thorough literature review, to understand the research methodologies and the ethical considerations, it helps the researcher to develop their skills and knowledge in their field.
• Inspiration for future research: Publishing a research paper can inspire future research by identifying gaps in the literature or by suggesting new directions for research. This can help researchers to identify new opportunities for investigation and to stay at the forefront of their field.
• Contribution to the field: Publishing a research paper adds to the body of knowledge in the field. It helps researchers and practitioners to understand the current state of research and knowledge in the field and it helps to advance the field.

Overall, publishing a research paper can be a valuable experience for researchers, providing opportunities for career advancement, professional recognition, collaboration, and impact on society. It can also help researchers to develop their skills and knowledge, and to contribute to the advancement of knowledge in their field.

What is the difference between a Research Paper and a Review Paper?

What is doi, what do you need to do during production of your research paper, ways to support your academic wellbeing which preparing the research paper/article, how to improve your research paper writing skills, is doi compulsory to publish a research paper in a journal, in what ways does research paper give weight to career development, how to develop a research paper from scratch, how plagiarism report plays crucial role in research paper publication.

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Home » How to Publish a Research Paper – Step by Step Guide

How to Publish a Research Paper – Step by Step Guide

Table of Contents

Publishing a research paper is an important step for researchers to disseminate their findings to a wider audience and contribute to the advancement of knowledge in their field. Whether you are a graduate student, a postdoctoral fellow, or an established researcher, publishing a paper requires careful planning, rigorous research, and clear writing. In this process, you will need to identify a research question , conduct a thorough literature review , design a methodology, analyze data, and draw conclusions. Additionally, you will need to consider the appropriate journals or conferences to submit your work to and adhere to their guidelines for formatting and submission. In this article, we will discuss some ways to publish your Research Paper.

How to Publish a Research Paper

To Publish a Research Paper follow the guide below:

• Conduct original research : Conduct thorough research on a specific topic or problem. Collect data, analyze it, and draw conclusions based on your findings.
• Write the paper : Write a detailed paper describing your research. It should include an abstract, introduction, literature review, methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion.
• Choose a suitable journal or conference : Look for a journal or conference that specializes in your research area. You can check their submission guidelines to ensure your paper meets their requirements.
• Prepare your submission: Follow the guidelines and prepare your submission, including the paper, abstract, cover letter, and any other required documents.
• Submit the paper: Submit your paper online through the journal or conference website. Make sure you meet the submission deadline.
• Peer-review process : Your paper will be reviewed by experts in the field who will provide feedback on the quality of your research, methodology, and conclusions.
• Revisions : Based on the feedback you receive, revise your paper and resubmit it.
• Acceptance : Once your paper is accepted, you will receive a notification from the journal or conference. You may need to make final revisions before the paper is published.
• Publication : Your paper will be published online or in print. You can also promote your work through social media or other channels to increase its visibility.

How to Choose Journal for Research Paper Publication

Here are some steps to follow to help you select an appropriate journal:

• Identify your research topic and audience : Your research topic and intended audience should guide your choice of journal. Identify the key journals in your field of research and read the scope and aim of the journal to determine if your paper is a good fit.
• Analyze the journal’s impact and reputation : Check the impact factor and ranking of the journal, as well as its acceptance rate and citation frequency. A high-impact journal can give your paper more visibility and credibility.
• Consider the journal’s publication policies : Look for the journal’s publication policies such as the word count limit, formatting requirements, open access options, and submission fees. Make sure that you can comply with the requirements and that the journal is in line with your publication goals.
• Look at recent publications : Review recent issues of the journal to evaluate whether your paper would fit in with the journal’s current content and style.
• Seek advice from colleagues and mentors: Ask for recommendations and suggestions from your colleagues and mentors in your field, especially those who have experience publishing in the same or similar journals.
• Be prepared to make changes : Be prepared to revise your paper according to the requirements and guidelines of the chosen journal. It is also important to be open to feedback from the editor and reviewers.

List of Journals for Research Paper Publications

There are thousands of academic journals covering various fields of research. Here are some of the most popular ones, categorized by field:

General/Multidisciplinary

• Nature: https://www.nature.com/
• Science: https://www.sciencemag.org/
• PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/
• Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS): https://www.pnas.org/
• The Lancet: https://www.thelancet.com/
• JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association): https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama

Social Sciences/Humanities

• Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/psp
• Journal of Consumer Research: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/journals/jcr
• Journal of Educational Psychology: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/edu
• Journal of Applied Psychology: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/apl
• Journal of Communication: https://academic.oup.com/joc
• American Journal of Political Science: https://ajps.org/
• Journal of International Business Studies: https://www.jibs.net/
• Journal of Marketing Research: https://www.ama.org/journal-of-marketing-research/

Natural Sciences

• Journal of Biological Chemistry: https://www.jbc.org/
• Cell: https://www.cell.com/
• Science Advances: https://advances.sciencemag.org/
• Chemical Reviews: https://pubs.acs.org/journal/chreay
• Angewandte Chemie: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/15213765
• Physical Review Letters: https://journals.aps.org/prl/
• Journal of Geophysical Research: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/2156531X
• Journal of High Energy Physics: https://link.springer.com/journal/13130

Engineering/Technology

• IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=5962385
• IEEE Transactions on Power Systems: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=59
• IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=42
• IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=87
• Journal of Engineering Mechanics: https://ascelibrary.org/journal/jenmdt
• Journal of Materials Science: https://www.springer.com/journal/10853
• Journal of Chemical Engineering of Japan: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/jcej
• Journal of Mechanical Design: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/mechanicaldesign

Medical/Health Sciences

• New England Journal of Medicine: https://www.nejm.org/
• The BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal): https://www.bmj.com/
• Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA): https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama
• Annals of Internal Medicine: https://www.acpjournals.org/journal/aim
• American Journal of Epidemiology: https://academic.oup.com/aje
• Journal of Clinical Oncology: https://ascopubs.org/journal/jco
• Journal of Infectious Diseases: https://academic.oup.com/jid

List of Conferences for Research Paper Publications

There are many conferences that accept research papers for publication. The specific conferences you should consider will depend on your field of research. Here are some suggestions for conferences in a few different fields:

Computer Science and Information Technology:

• IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM): https://www.ieee-infocom.org/
• ACM SIGCOMM Conference on Data Communication: https://conferences.sigcomm.org/sigcomm/
• IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (SP): https://www.ieee-security.org/TC/SP/
• ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS): https://www.sigsac.org/ccs/
• ACM Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (CHI): https://chi2022.acm.org/

Engineering:

• IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA): https://www.ieee-icra.org/
• International Conference on Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (ICMAE): http://www.icmae.org/
• International Conference on Civil and Environmental Engineering (ICCEE): http://www.iccee.org/
• International Conference on Materials Science and Engineering (ICMSE): http://www.icmse.org/
• International Conference on Energy and Power Engineering (ICEPE): http://www.icepe.org/

Natural Sciences:

• American Chemical Society National Meeting & Exposition: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/meetings/national-meeting.html
• American Physical Society March Meeting: https://www.aps.org/meetings/march/
• International Conference on Environmental Science and Technology (ICEST): http://www.icest.org/
• International Conference on Natural Science and Environment (ICNSE): http://www.icnse.org/
• International Conference on Life Science and Biological Engineering (LSBE): http://www.lsbe.org/

Social Sciences:

• Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA): https://www.asanet.org/annual-meeting-2022
• International Conference on Social Science and Humanities (ICSSH): http://www.icssh.org/
• International Conference on Psychology and Behavioral Sciences (ICPBS): http://www.icpbs.org/
• International Conference on Education and Social Science (ICESS): http://www.icess.org/
• International Conference on Management and Information Science (ICMIS): http://www.icmis.org/

How to Publish a Research Paper in Journal

Publishing a research paper in a journal is a crucial step in disseminating scientific knowledge and contributing to the field. Here are the general steps to follow:

• Choose a research topic : Select a topic of your interest and identify a research question or problem that you want to investigate. Conduct a literature review to identify the gaps in the existing knowledge that your research will address.
• Conduct research : Develop a research plan and methodology to collect data and conduct experiments. Collect and analyze data to draw conclusions that address the research question.
• Write a paper: Organize your findings into a well-structured paper with clear and concise language. Your paper should include an introduction, literature review, methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion. Use academic language and provide references for your sources.
• Choose a journal: Choose a journal that is relevant to your research topic and audience. Consider factors such as impact factor, acceptance rate, and the reputation of the journal.
• Follow journal guidelines : Review the submission guidelines and formatting requirements of the journal. Follow the guidelines carefully to ensure that your paper meets the journal’s requirements.
• Submit your paper : Submit your paper to the journal through the online submission system or by email. Include a cover letter that briefly explains the significance of your research and why it is suitable for the journal.
• Wait for reviews: Your paper will be reviewed by experts in the field. Be prepared to address their comments and make revisions to your paper.
• Revise and resubmit: Make revisions to your paper based on the reviewers’ comments and resubmit it to the journal. If your paper is accepted, congratulations! If not, consider revising and submitting it to another journal.
• Address reviewer comments : Reviewers may provide comments and suggestions for revisions to your paper. Address these comments carefully and thoughtfully to improve the quality of your paper.
• Submit the final version: Once your revisions are complete, submit the final version of your paper to the journal. Be sure to follow any additional formatting guidelines and requirements provided by the journal.
• Publication : If your paper is accepted, it will be published in the journal. Some journals provide online publication while others may publish a print version. Be sure to cite your published paper in future research and communicate your findings to the scientific community.

How to Publish a Research Paper for Students

Here are some steps you can follow to publish a research paper as an Under Graduate or a High School Student:

• Select a topic: Choose a topic that is relevant and interesting to you, and that you have a good understanding of.
• Conduct research : Gather information and data on your chosen topic through research, experiments, surveys, or other means.
• Write the paper : Start with an outline, then write the introduction, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion sections of the paper. Be sure to follow any guidelines provided by your instructor or the journal you plan to submit to.
• Edit and revise: Review your paper for errors in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Ask a peer or mentor to review your paper and provide feedback for improvement.
• Choose a journal : Look for journals that publish papers in your field of study and that are appropriate for your level of research. Some popular journals for students include PLOS ONE, Nature, and Science.
• Submit the paper: Follow the submission guidelines for the journal you choose, which typically include a cover letter, abstract, and formatting requirements. Be prepared to wait several weeks to months for a response.
• Address feedback : If your paper is accepted with revisions, address the feedback from the reviewers and resubmit your paper. If your paper is rejected, review the feedback and consider revising and resubmitting to a different journal.

How to Publish a Research Paper for Free

Publishing a research paper for free can be challenging, but it is possible. Here are some steps you can take to publish your research paper for free:

• Choose a suitable open-access journal: Look for open-access journals that are relevant to your research area. Open-access journals allow readers to access your paper without charge, so your work will be more widely available.
• Check the journal’s reputation : Before submitting your paper, ensure that the journal is reputable by checking its impact factor, publication history, and editorial board.
• Follow the submission guidelines : Every journal has specific guidelines for submitting papers. Make sure to follow these guidelines carefully to increase the chances of acceptance.
• Submit your paper : Once you have completed your research paper, submit it to the journal following their submission guidelines.
• Wait for the review process: Your paper will undergo a peer-review process, where experts in your field will evaluate your work. Be patient during this process, as it can take several weeks or even months.
• Revise your paper : If your paper is rejected, don’t be discouraged. Revise your paper based on the feedback you receive from the reviewers and submit it to another open-access journal.
• Promote your research: Once your paper is published, promote it on social media and other online platforms. This will increase the visibility of your work and help it reach a wider audience.

Journals and Conferences for Free Research Paper publications

Here are the websites of the open-access journals and conferences mentioned:

Open-Access Journals:

• PLOS ONE – https://journals.plos.org/plosone/
• BMC Research Notes – https://bmcresnotes.biomedcentral.com/
• Frontiers in… – https://www.frontiersin.org/
• Journal of Open Research Software – https://openresearchsoftware.metajnl.com/
• PeerJ – https://peerj.com/

Conferences:

• IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM) – https://globecom2022.ieee-globecom.org/
• IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM) – https://infocom2022.ieee-infocom.org/
• IEEE International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM) – https://www.ieee-icdm.org/
• ACM SIGCOMM Conference on Data Communication (SIGCOMM) – https://conferences.sigcomm.org/sigcomm/
• ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS) – https://www.sigsac.org/ccs/CCS2022/

Importance of Research Paper Publication

Research paper publication is important for several reasons, both for individual researchers and for the scientific community as a whole. Here are some reasons why:

• Advancing scientific knowledge : Research papers provide a platform for researchers to present their findings and contribute to the body of knowledge in their field. These papers often contain novel ideas, experimental data, and analyses that can help to advance scientific understanding.
• Building a research career : Publishing research papers is an essential component of building a successful research career. Researchers are often evaluated based on the number and quality of their publications, and having a strong publication record can increase one’s chances of securing funding, tenure, or a promotion.
• Peer review and quality control: Publication in a peer-reviewed journal means that the research has been scrutinized by other experts in the field. This peer review process helps to ensure the quality and validity of the research findings.
• Recognition and visibility : Publishing a research paper can bring recognition and visibility to the researchers and their work. It can lead to invitations to speak at conferences, collaborations with other researchers, and media coverage.
• Impact on society : Research papers can have a significant impact on society by informing policy decisions, guiding clinical practice, and advancing technological innovation.

Advantages of Research Paper Publication

There are several advantages to publishing a research paper, including:

• Recognition: Publishing a research paper allows researchers to gain recognition for their work, both within their field and in the academic community as a whole. This can lead to new collaborations, invitations to conferences, and other opportunities to share their research with a wider audience.
• Career advancement : A strong publication record can be an important factor in career advancement, particularly in academia. Publishing research papers can help researchers secure funding, grants, and promotions.
• Dissemination of knowledge : Research papers are an important way to share new findings and ideas with the broader scientific community. By publishing their research, scientists can contribute to the collective body of knowledge in their field and help advance scientific understanding.
• Feedback and peer review : Publishing a research paper allows other experts in the field to provide feedback on the research, which can help improve the quality of the work and identify potential flaws or limitations. Peer review also helps ensure that research is accurate and reliable.
• Citation and impact : Published research papers can be cited by other researchers, which can help increase the impact and visibility of the research. High citation rates can also help establish a researcher’s reputation and credibility within their field.

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Benefits of Publishing a Research Paper

Publishing your research paper is a form of acknowledging your work in your field. It is a way of presenting your work and your contribution in front of the whole world. It guarantees that you have experience, exposure, expertise, and views recognized in the field of research. Let’s discuss a few points on how publishing your research paper is going to be beneficial for you as a high school student or an undergrad.

1. Improves writing and research

In the process of doing research, writing, editing, and publishing an article for the first time, valuable feedback will be provided, giving you an idea of where you need to improve and where your strengths are. For a professional career and graduate studies, writing skills are helpful.

2. Experience with the Scholarly Publication Process

The publication is required in many disciplines. It is something that we will use in our future career. It also provides a connection to and understanding of the field.

3. Build connections and networks

You meet people and build a lot of connections and networks during a research project. It’s very important and very beneficial. Similarly, when you publish your work, you meet a lot of different people from different journals. A lot of students submit their projects and thesis for review and are returned with many questions and corrections. The way you present and document your hard work and all the data you have collected is a very important criterion for journals. Often it is seen that a publication may be rejected by a well-known journal but may be accepted by a less known or less impact journal. During this process, you learn a lot and build connections that can help you in your future work and career.

4. Professionalize the undergraduate experience

Publishing papers/projects will provide a level of professionalization to a resume that many undergraduates still need to have. Publishing a paper will also be helpful as a writing sample for graduate school applications. It will signal to the graduate school committee that serious steps were taken to pursue research interests.

5. Inform a future career path

Publishing a paper might help inform a future career path, and opportunities have yet to be considered. After completing their undergraduate degree, it piques students’ interest in publishing as the next step. Working with other students and faculty will allow students to enter a scholarly community that helps them decide their future plans.

6. Higher Education

With the growing competition in higher education, research gives you an upper hand in the crowd. Every school and college has a different selection process. A published research paper shows that you have academic excellence. Hands-on research at an early age brings many benefits, and you learn many skills and values. Colleges select candidates based on the potential and abilities displayed in the applied field. Experience in research and a published paper as a high school student or an undergrad adds a big advantage to your profile. So the earlier you begin, the faster you can achieve your goal. There are many other benefits to publishing the research paper that you will realize as you go further. For example

• Experience the scholarly publication process.
• Be eligible to share your work in conferences and seminars.
• Help you set a mark in the research world.
• Prove your area of interest and genre of expertise.
• Be eligible to obtain scholarships and funding for your work.
• Display leadership and initiative.
• Gain access to better work opportunities, etc.

7. To earn money

Master’s and Ph.D. students’ CVs need outstanding information that attracts employers. In this regard, some published papers in peer-reviewed journals will attract employers in academia and the research industry. Research and publishing in journals are very important Key Performance Indicators (KPI) of academicians or researchers in many universities in different countries. Hence, to earn more, you have to research and publish because promotion to a higher level always brings extra money into your pocket.

Research would allow you to explore in deep and help reach a conclusion, which could be right or wrong, but as you have read a lot, you have learned a lot. Your subconscious mind will store the knowledge that you have learned from research on an issue. Thus, you will be an expert in some particular areas that would develop your confidence to make viable arguments with colleagues and peers, who will admire you and give you a promotion, especially when you are in academia. So, doing research and publishing papers in journals creates the opportunity to earn money!

8. To Get Scholarship

There are many scholarships for masters and Ph.D. courses in the universities, especially in developed countries in the UK, Europe, Australia, Japan, USA, Canada, and Middle Eastern countries. However, if you have at least one research paper published in a peer-reviewed journal, your application will be preferred by the scholarship selection team. It is because you have already shown your passion and hard work regarding research. So to secure a good scholarship, you should have at least 2-3 published papers in peer-reviewed journals.

9. To be an Independent and Critical Thinker

A published research paper in a journal indicates to a prospective employer that you have excellent powers of endurance. Developing a research paper requires an investment of a long time in being independent and critical of the issue. Thus, the article shows that you can think independently and critically and complete a long project, i.e., a research paper of many pages.

10. To Developing Communication Skills and Network

When a master’s or Ph.D. student writes a paper, he or she reads many articles of many authors, and sometimes he or she has to email them or even call them. As a result, it becomes easier for them to develop academic and research communication skills. This eventually gives an excellent opportunity to create and establish a network with intellectual people around the world.

Furthermore, in writing and developing a detailed research paper, master’s and Ph.D. students can practically develop analytical and networking skills by themselves that are globally sought-after and incredibly beneficial.

11. To develop determination

People often say that they are determined, but they are actually not. However, if you write a research paper and publish it finally, it shows your determination to achieve something by exploring more than hundreds of research papers. In the publication process, a student has to revise and resubmit papers to get acceptance. The entire process takes a long time and positive determination. Sometimes, they feel broken and frustrated, but they feel successful if they finally get the paper published. Hence, doing research and getting published a research paper makes a master’s and Ph.D. student determined. This ultimately makes every master’s and Ph.D. student determine what employers look for in the applicants.

Now you know the importance of publishing research papers in peer-reviewed journals. Yes, you also know the importance of peer-reviewed articles in your CV. So, do research and publish. All the best!

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Guide to Getting Published in Journals

• Why publish in journals?
• Identifying potential journals
• Creating a journal comparison spreadsheet
• Aims & Scope
• Editorial Board
• How different journals approach peer review
• Different open access models
• Interpreting traditional metrics like the Impact Factor
• Alternative metrics
• Ethics and malpractice statements
• Recognising and avoiding predatory journals
• Instructions for authors
• Submitting your paper

Introduction

What is a journal? And why is important to publish your work in one? Finding the right journal for your work can make a big difference to the way it is received, so the process of selecting a journal can be an important one.

There are several key benefits to publishing research in journals:

DISCOVERABILITY

• Publishing in journals can give your work visibility among other researchers in your field, outside of your immediate circle of contacts and colleagues.
• Journals can makes your work more discoverable, as they are already being read by circles of interested readers.
• Journals often have sophisticated distribution networks, placing work into libraries, organisations and institutes, and through letterboxes of readers around the world.

CONTRIBUTING TO THE RECORDS OF RESEARCH IN THE FIELD

• Journal publication helps to preserve your work in the permanent records of research in the field.
• Adding your work to this record involves you in the active research community for a topic, helping to expand your professional network, increasing potential for collaboration and interaction with peers.
• Publishing your work through visible sources helps others to learn. By adding your experiences to the literature of the field, it helps to build the corpus of knowledge in your subject area.

THE BENEFITS OF PEER REVIEW

• The peer review process helps improve the presentation and communication of research. The feedback can help you to frame your arguments in the most effective ways, and may even present valuable new insights into your own work. In addition, the peer review process can also help you reach peers and senior members of the research community by having journal editors, editorial boards and reviewers read your work.

DISSEMINATION AND IMPACT

• Selecting the appropriate journals can help add information to the public discussion of contemporary topics, beyond academic circles.
• You may be required by funding agencies to publish your work in certain journals, as open access, or meeting other criteria stipulated in your grant award.
• As well as the publication itself, particular journals may help you to engage with audiences, and meet requirements to achieve or provide certain impact metrics, evidence of engagement and interaction with your work.

CAREER ADVANCEMENT

• Publishing in particular journals can be an essential component to advance your career, by meeting necessary assessment criteria and output performance targets.

PREVENTING DUPLICATION OF EFFORT

• And last but by no means least, publishing your work can prevent waste and increase efficiencies, by enabling others to build on your achievements or avoid unnecessary duplication of efforts.

As you can see, your choice of journal can make a significant difference to the impact your paper may have. With much to consider, choosing the right journal for your research is both important and difficult.

The different modules will dig further into the ideas presented here, helping you identify the journals that will maximise the potential in your paper, reach the most appropriate audiences, and enhance your career.

• << Previous: Getting started
• Next: Identifying potential journals >>
• Last Updated: Sep 18, 2023 1:28 PM
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Reasons to publish

Scientific Data  aims to  promote wider data sharing and reuse, as well as credit those that share their data   and is open to submissions from all areas of natural sciences, medicine, engineering and social sciences  – including descriptions big and small data, from major consortiums, single labs and individuals.

Manuscripts must make an original contribution but they are not assessed based on their perceived significance, importance or impact. 

Publishing with  Scientific Data  provides citable, peer-reviewed credit for created datasets.

Recognition

Allow the publication of datasets that may not be well-suited for traditional research journals and grant recognition to those who may not qualify for authorship on traditional papers.

Discoverability

All papers published in  Scientific Data  are indexed in Web of Science, PubMed, PubMed Central, MEDLINE, Scopus and Google Scholar, as well as being available and discoverable on  nature.com.

Reusability

Standardized and detailed descriptions make research data easier to find and reuse, allowing data to be utilised in future experiments and research. This will also fulfil a significant part of funders' data-management requirements, particularly by demonstrating and promoting the reuse potential of research data.

Publishing a Data Descriptor will enable the data generated to be more widely available to your peers and community, as well as easily understandable and reproducible.

Accessibility

Papers and any associated data are published fully open access.

Peer-review

Focused peer-review evaluates the technical quality and completeness of each paper and associated datasets with standards upheld by an Editorial Board of recognized experts from a broad range of fields. Fast review turnaround and rapid publication of papers ensures that authors are able to publish their data in a timely manner.

Expert Service

Expert editorial support and services ensure each submission and publication is dealt with in a timely and professional manner.

The technology and experience of the Nature Research provides powerful searching of, linking to and visualization of content.

Find out more about  how to publish with  Scientific Data .

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
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How to Write and Publish Your Research in a Journal

Last Updated: May 26, 2024 Fact Checked

Choosing a Journal

Writing the research paper, editing & revising your paper, submitting your paper, navigating the peer review process, research paper help.

This article was co-authored by Matthew Snipp, PhD and by wikiHow staff writer, Cheyenne Main . C. Matthew Snipp is the Burnet C. and Mildred Finley Wohlford Professor of Humanities and Sciences in the Department of Sociology at Stanford University. He is also the Director for the Institute for Research in the Social Science’s Secure Data Center. He has been a Research Fellow at the U.S. Bureau of the Census and a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He has published 3 books and over 70 articles and book chapters on demography, economic development, poverty and unemployment. He is also currently serving on the National Institute of Child Health and Development’s Population Science Subcommittee. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin—Madison. There are 13 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 707,014 times.

Publishing a research paper in a peer-reviewed journal allows you to network with other scholars, get your name and work into circulation, and further refine your ideas and research. Before submitting your paper, make sure it reflects all the work you’ve done and have several people read over it and make comments. Keep reading to learn how you can choose a journal, prepare your work for publication, submit it, and revise it after you get a response back.

Things You Should Know

• Create a list of journals you’d like to publish your work in and choose one that best aligns with your topic and your desired audience.
• Prepare your manuscript using the journal’s requirements and ask at least 2 professors or supervisors to review your paper.
• Write a cover letter that “sells” your manuscript, says how your research adds to your field and explains why you chose the specific journal you’re submitting to.

• Ask your professors or supervisors for well-respected journals that they’ve had good experiences publishing with and that they read regularly.
• Many journals also only accept specific formats, so by choosing a journal before you start, you can write your article to their specifications and increase your chances of being accepted.
• If you’ve already written a paper you’d like to publish, consider whether your research directly relates to a hot topic or area of research in the journals you’re looking into.

• Review the journal’s peer review policies and submission process to see if you’re comfortable creating or adjusting your work according to their standards.
• Open-access journals can increase your readership because anyone can access them.

• Scientific research papers: Instead of a “thesis,” you might write a “research objective” instead. This is where you state the purpose of your research.
• “This paper explores how George Washington’s experiences as a young officer may have shaped his views during difficult circumstances as a commanding officer.”
• “This paper contends that George Washington’s experiences as a young officer on the 1750s Pennsylvania frontier directly impacted his relationship with his Continental Army troops during the harsh winter at Valley Forge.”

• Scientific research papers: Include a “materials and methods” section with the step-by-step process you followed and the materials you used. [5] X Research source
• Read other research papers in your field to see how they’re written. Their format, writing style, subject matter, and vocabulary can help guide your own paper. [6] X Research source

• If you’re writing about George Washington’s experiences as a young officer, you might emphasize how this research changes our perspective of the first president of the U.S.
• Link this section to your thesis or research objective.
• If you’re writing a paper about ADHD, you might discuss other applications for your research.

• Scientific research papers: You might include your research and/or analytical methods, your main findings or results, and the significance or implications of your research.
• Try to get as many people as you can to read over your abstract and provide feedback before you submit your paper to a journal.

• They might also provide templates to help you structure your manuscript according to their specific guidelines. [11] X Research source

• Not all journal reviewers will be experts on your specific topic, so a non-expert “outsider’s perspective” can be valuable.

• If you have a paper on the purification of wastewater with fungi, you might use both the words “fungi” and “mushrooms.”
• Use software like iThenticate, Turnitin, or PlagScan to check for similarities between the submitted article and published material available online. [15] X Research source

• Header: Address the editor who will be reviewing your manuscript by their name, include the date of submission, and the journal you are submitting to.
• First paragraph: Include the title of your manuscript, the type of paper it is (like review, research, or case study), and the research question you wanted to answer and why.
• Second paragraph: Explain what was done in your research, your main findings, and why they are significant to your field.
• Third paragraph: Explain why the journal’s readers would be interested in your work and why your results are important to your field.
• Conclusion: State the author(s) and any journal requirements that your work complies with (like ethical standards”).
• “We confirm that this manuscript has not been published elsewhere and is not under consideration by another journal.”
• “All authors have approved the manuscript and agree with its submission to [insert the name of the target journal].”

• Submit your article to only one journal at a time.
• When submitting online, use your university email account. This connects you with a scholarly institution, which can add credibility to your work.

• Accept: Only minor adjustments are needed, based on the provided feedback by the reviewers. A first submission will rarely be accepted without any changes needed.
• Revise and Resubmit: Changes are needed before publication can be considered, but the journal is still very interested in your work.
• Reject and Resubmit: Extensive revisions are needed. Your work may not be acceptable for this journal, but they might also accept it if significant changes are made.
• Reject: The paper isn’t and won’t be suitable for this publication, but that doesn’t mean it might not work for another journal.

• Try organizing the reviewer comments by how easy it is to address them. That way, you can break your revisions down into more manageable parts.
• If you disagree with a comment made by a reviewer, try to provide an evidence-based explanation when you resubmit your paper.

• If you’re resubmitting your paper to the same journal, include a point-by-point response paper that talks about how you addressed all of the reviewers’ comments in your revision. [22] X Research source
• If you’re not sure which journal to submit to next, you might be able to ask the journal editor which publications they recommend.

Expert Q&A

You might also like.

• If reviewers suspect that your submitted manuscript plagiarizes another work, they may refer to a Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) flowchart to see how to move forward. [23] X Research source Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

• ↑ https://www.wiley.com/en-us/network/publishing/research-publishing/choosing-a-journal/6-steps-to-choosing-the-right-journal-for-your-research-infographic
• ↑ https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13187-020-01751-z
• ↑ https://libguides.unomaha.edu/c.php?g=100510&p=651627
• ↑ https://www.canberra.edu.au/library/start-your-research/research_help/publishing-research
• ↑ https://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/conclusions
• ↑ https://writing.wisc.edu/handbook/assignments/writing-an-abstract-for-your-research-paper/
• ↑ https://www.springer.com/gp/authors-editors/book-authors-editors/your-publication-journey/manuscript-preparation
• ↑ https://apus.libanswers.com/writing/faq/2391
• ↑ https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/library/keyword/search-strategy
• ↑ https://ifis.libguides.com/journal-publishing-guide/submitting-your-paper
• ↑ https://www.springer.com/kr/authors-editors/authorandreviewertutorials/submitting-to-a-journal-and-peer-review/cover-letters/10285574
• ↑ https://www.apa.org/monitor/sep02/publish.aspx
• ↑ Matthew Snipp, PhD. Research Fellow, U.S. Bureau of the Census. Expert Interview. 26 March 2020.

About This Article

To publish a research paper, ask a colleague or professor to review your paper and give you feedback. Once you've revised your work, familiarize yourself with different academic journals so that you can choose the publication that best suits your paper. Make sure to look at the "Author's Guide" so you can format your paper according to the guidelines for that publication. Then, submit your paper and don't get discouraged if it is not accepted right away. You may need to revise your paper and try again. To learn about the different responses you might get from journals, see our reviewer's explanation below. Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Looking to succeed? Understanding the importance of research publications

Are you working on a research project? Odds are you are currently involved with a research project or have been in the past. Psychology majors typically have a distinct advantage over other majors in undergraduate research, as our field has a rich and proud tradition of involving students. However, it is important to note that undergraduate research extends beyond our discipline. For example, the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) states undergraduate research occurs when a student conducts an investigation that makes an original contribution to the discipline. Additionally, CUR has identified many benefits to participating in undergraduate research including enhanced student learning, increased retention, increased enrollment in graduate education and effective career preparation (2011). 

The final step in the research process is disseminating the work. Typically, students fulfill this step by presenting at local, regional or national conferences. Although these activities are important, the purpose of this article is to encourage undergraduate students to also consider disseminating the work by publishing their findings in academic journals. Yes, you read that sentence correctly: It is possible to conduct research as a student and have it published before you earn your degree. In the opening paragraph, we mentioned some of the benefits of conducting research. However, there are additional benefits to having a manuscript published because the publishing process aids in developing key skills. For example, the publication process refines writing skills (Lawson & Smith, 1996; Peden, 1991) and gives you the opportunity to learn from constructive feedback provided by reviewers. A published manuscript is also seen as evidence of your abilities in methodology as well as data collection and analyses (Brownlow, 1997). These are the key skills that graduate programs look for in applicants.

Even if you are not interested in graduate school immediately upon graduation, the publication process develops skills valued by future employers. The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) surveyed hiring managers and asked them to indicate what skills they desired in 2015 graduates. The top five skills included the ability to: work in teams; make decisions; communicate with others; plan, organize and prioritize work; and obtain and process information (Adams, 2014). These recent findings mirror results shared by the Association of American Colleges and Universities on the topic of preparing college students to succeed in a global economy (Peter D. Hart Research Associates, 2007). Thus, the bottom line is that publishing a manuscript helps develop desired skills whether you plan to apply to graduate school immediately or enter the workforce.

If you are interested in submitting a manuscript for publication in a journal, there are a few simple things that can aid you in the process. First, you will want to ensure the manuscript adheres to APA style (2010). Pay careful attention to details such as formatting of headers, in-text citations, spacing and other style mechanics. Second, you can improve the quality of your manuscript by checking the appropriate use of punctuation, grammar and spelling and by avoiding run-on sentences. Although this sounds like a no-brainer, it is always best to double check for these issues before submitting. Simply improving the quality of your manuscript prior to submission will likely decrease the number of revisions required by reviewers and possibly even increase the likelihood of your manuscript being accepted for publication.

When considering submitting an article for publication, it is always recommended you get support from a faculty sponsor. Your faculty sponsor will likely read the manuscript and make suggestions for improvement prior to your submitting it. When you both believe the manuscript is ready to be submitted, you will find many journals in the field specifically looking for submissions from undergraduate students and their faculty sponsors. Remember, you should only submit the manuscript to one journal at a time for consideration.

Following is a list of journals that encourage submissions from undergraduate student authors. For additional information, see Ware and Burns (2008). 

• Journal of Psychological Inquiry JPI accepts undergraduate manuscript submissions exclusively in the following categories: empirical, literature review, historical or theoretical review and special feature. Faculty members from a variety of institutions review submitted manuscripts. Managing editors: Jennifer Bonds-Raacke, PhD, and John Raacke, PhD. 
• Undergraduate Journal of Psychology   UJP accepts undergraduate empirical or literature review manuscript submissions from around the world. One student reviewer and one expert reviewer are assigned to each manuscript. Managing editors: Sara Levens, PhD, and Melissa Medaugh.
• Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research   Psi Chi allows undergraduate, graduate and faculty first authors to submit manuscripts of empirical studies. Faculty members are assigned to review the manuscript submissions. Managing editor: Warren Jones, PhD.
• Undergraduate Research Journal of Psychology at UCLA URJP accepts undergraduate submissions of editorials, research articles and UCLA professor bibliographies. Undergraduate and graduate students are assigned to review submitted manuscripts. Editor-in-chief: Lauren Wong.
• Modern Psychological Studies MPS accepts undergraduate experimental research, literature reviews, theoretical papers and book reviews. Undergraduate students review submitted manuscripts. Faculty sponsor: David Ross, PhD.
• Journal of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences JPBS allows undergraduates, graduates and faculty to submit empirical studies and literature reviews. Undergraduate and graduate student officers of JPBS review manuscripts. Managing editor: Robert Griffo, PhD. 

References 

Adam, S. (2014, November 12). The 10 skills employers most want in 2015 graduates . 

American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, D.C.: Author. 

Brownlow, S. (1997). Going the extra mile: The rewards of publishing your undergraduate research. Psi Chi Journal of Undergraduate Research, 2 , 83-85.

Council on Undergraduate Research. (2011). Fact sheet . 

Lawson, T. J., & Smith, R. A. (1996). Formatting APA pages in WordPerfect: An update. Teaching of Psychology, 23 (2), 56-58. doi: 10.1207/s15328023top2301_16

Peden, B. F. (1991). Teaching the importance of accuracy in preparing references. Teaching of Psychology, 18 (2), 102-105. doi: 10.1207/s15328023top1802_10

Peter D. Hart Research Associates. (2007). How should colleges prepare students to succeed in today's global economy?

Ware, E. M., & Burns, S. R. (2008). Undergraduate student research journals: Opportunities for and benefits from publication. In R. L. Miller, R. F. Rycek, E. Balcetis, S. T. Barney, B. C. Beins, S. R. Burns, R. Smith, & M. E. Ware (Eds.), Developing, promoting, & sustaining the undergraduate research experience in psychology (253-256).

About the Authors

Undergraduate Research at Illinois

A publish.illinois.edu site.

The Benefits of Publishing as an Undergraduate

Writing an article and going through the peer review and editing processes can be difficult and time-consuming. Students may wonder if the end result is worth adding the extra commitment to their schedules. However, having an article published as an undergraduate has a wide variety of benefits and can present new opportunities to students involved in the publication process. Here are a few of the reasons to consider publishing as an undergraduate:

1. To help improve writing and research skills.

The process of researching, writing, editing, and publishing an article for the first time will provide valuable feedback on what steps may require improvement and where strengths may be. Going through these steps will improve writing and research skills that will be useful in graduate studies or a professional career.

2. To experience the scholarly publication process.

Publication is a requirement in many disciplines. Going through the process as an undergraduate will make the experience familiar when it may be required later. It will also provide context and understanding of the field.

3. To connect with professors and researchers.

Faculty in the department the journal is connected to will likely be involved in the publication or post-publication process. Publishing in the journal will help connect students to those faculty members in a way that isn’t often achieved in the typical classroom setting. Publishing may also help students connect with other professionals and researchers in the field, providing new opportunities for collaboration and future study.

4. To display leadership and initiative.

Working as part of the editorial team or being involved in the publication process is hard work. Faculty, employers, and graduate school admissions committee members will understand this and recognize pursuing this endeavor as an example of leadership and drive.

5. To professionalize the undergraduate experience.

Having a published paper will provide a certain level of professionalization to a resume that many undergraduates do not have. It will signal to graduate school committees and employers that steps were taken to seriously pursue research interests. Published paper may also be useful as a writing sample in graduate school applications.

6. To inform a future career path.

The process of publishing a paper may help inform a future career path and illuminate opportunities that may otherwise have not been considered. It may pique a student’s interest in pursuing publishing or graduate studies as the next step after completion of an undergraduate degree. Alternatively, it may confirm to other students that they wish to pursue other interests outside of academia. Working with faculty and other student researchers will allow students to enter a scholarly community that may help them decide on a future career path. Either way, the process will be valuable in assisting students in deciding what the next step will be.

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Benefits of Paper publishing

What are the benefits of paper publishing.

Off course, many of you may face this question, what are benefits of paper publishing?

Well, i will help you. I will brief about benefits of paper publishing.

“The paper basically is a outcome of your research”

Not publishing is when we are doing some research and not making it publicly available. Its like manufacturing a product and not launching it.

No one knows about your work if you do not publish. Publishing the paper adds your work a value. Also on the other hand, it help others to work further.

I prefer to divide my discussion in following categories:

Benefits of paper publishing for students:

Now a days, its very common to publish a paper by students. In fact, many of the institutes are making it mandatory for the students to publish a paper. Off course, these papers are related to the project work of the student.

Furthermore, students projects will be worldwide, recognize by publishing a paper. Getting certificate is apart. Students will learn to write a paper. It helps in improving the writing skills of students.

Benefits of paper publishing for teachers:

Modern teacher is basically a researcher. Many teaching professionals are always working on various experiments. Eventually, the teachers will be living a creative life with research.

Teachers working on various topics must publish a paper. Its award of hard work of a teacher.

Generally, when preparing a paper, teachers will come across various recent developments in the area of research. This will thus is up-gradation of knowledge.

This knowledge gain will help the teachers in delivery of course too. Many institutions are motivating the teachers to publish the papers. This will be the initiative by the institutes to motivate the teachers for research.

Benefits of paper publishing for other technical professionals:

In addition, technocrats always needs up-gradation in knowledge. In my opinion any upcoming technology is a result of research presented in some research papers.

Technical professionals with publishing papers can add more value to their portfolio. It shows the research culture of the professional.

I can say, when we publish without any compulsion, a researcher is alive.

Otherwise, just publishing a paper for the sake appraisal is of no use. Finally i conclude with following common benefits of publishing paper:

Common benefits of publishing paper:

Improves writing skill

Helps in knowledge up-gradation

Keeps me updated

Teaches me about literature survey

Makes me happy

Creates a set of knowledge for others

Appreciate my work

Publicity to my work

Keeps me alive as a researcher

Motivate others to research

Gives chance to externally access my work

Fig- Benefits of paper publishing

At last, i am sure this will help. This section will thus motivate you to write a paper. You might have understood the benefits. You can also refer my previous post. To know more about paper publishing please refer Peer reviewed journals insights . In my coming articles i will cover how to write a research paper.

27 thoughts on “Benefits of Paper publishing”

Lots of things comes under the paper presentation but we should know to right place, right subject,right scope for that and to achieve somthing special which will be valuable for us. So that path you should be suggest to us.thanks

Well, definately, in my coming posts i will include your suggestions…

Very nice Sir. It gives valuable information and knowledge about paper publication.

Thanks for the appreciation Mr.sagar

Thanks for such detail information you given sir, it will help a lot to courage students for publishing papers in future

Thank you very much ajinkya…well you may like my other posts too…

Confidence boosting…along with journey of researcher begin automatically

great understanding for beginners, crisp, precise and easy language boast the content.

Thanks for the valuable words…

Thank you so much sir for giving an detailed information about benefits of paper publication.

Thanks Prof.Mahesh, waiting for your another post too..

Awesome article which revitalize our lines of thought. Thanks for your precious enlightenment.

Your most welcome Mr. Amardeep

Very encouraging one. Looking forward for the next article.

For sure..coming up with next article..

Thanks for elaborating importance of paper presentation. It will definitely encourage everyone.

Thanks for motivating words….

Thanks a lot sir for showing us the benefits of paper publishing. I guess this will also help me in my profession in many ways. I would like to do this….!!

Thats great swapnil if you are motivated… Stay motivated…

Its great… Simple language. Well organized..

All the information and benefits of paper publications are explained in detail.. Definitely it will boost the confidence for preparing and publishing more and more papers….

Great…!!very good information, like it

Very good information

Great…very good information.

Is there any monetary benefits? And how our research work is used to creating a new technology? If someone create a new technology using our research work then will they give us money or reward or something else? Hope you will answer my questions. Your blogs are awesome.

You are absolutely right. there are a lot of benefits to publishing.

Thank u for your guidance

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What is the benefit from publishing a working paper in a journal in terms of citations? Evidence from economics

• Open access
• Published: 26 March 2021
• Volume 126 , pages 4701–4714, ( 2021 )

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• Klaus Wohlrabe   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5651-2641 1 &
• Constantin Bürgi 2  

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Many papers in economics that are published in peer reviewed journals are initially released in widely circulated working paper series. This raises the question about the benefit of publishing in a peer-reviewed journal in terms of citations. Specifically, we address the question: to what extent does the stamp of approval obtained by publishing in a peer-reviewed journal lead to more subsequent citations for papers that are already available in working paper series? Our data set comprises about 28,000 working papers from four major working paper series in economics. Using panel data methods, we show that the publication in a peer reviewed journal results in around twice the number of yearly citations relative to working papers that never get published in a journal. Our results hold in several robustness checks.

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Introduction

One of the most important metrics to assess the importance of a research article, its impact or value is its citation count. The citation count across articles is in turn used in rankings of academic journals, authors, departments, universities or as an input for tenure and promotion decisions (e.g. Segalla ( 2008 ) or Seiler and Wohlrabe ( 2012 )). Due to this, the expected citation count is one of the factors that determines researchers’ decisions of how to disseminate their research, be it as a published article or not. Footnote 1

Traditionally, publishing an article in a peer-reviewed journal has been an effective way to get one’s work cited. For example, it increases the outreach of the article, makes it available online (for a fee or free as open access), and it provides a stamp of approval by peers. However, many of these benefits can readily be obtained by omitting the peer review process and publishing a paper in a working paper series or as a preprint. Indeed, there are many working papers that received a substantial number of citations even if they never successfully completed the peer review process to become journal articles.

In addition, the literature has identified several limitations of the peer review process that do not apply to working papers. Bornmann ( 2011 ) provides an excellent description. For example, Laband and Piette ( 1994 ), Hodgson and Rothman ( 1999 ) and Ductor and Visser ( 2020 ) suggest that the editor and his or her relationship to the authors can have a large impact on the chances of a paper getting published in a high tier journal. In addition, working papers are available without delay while the time from submission to publication in peer-reviewed journals can take up to multiple years and has increased over time (e.g. Ellison ( 2002 )). The almost immediate availability of working papers allows a timelier discourse of the findings and potentially more citations. Footnote 2

While there are some shortcomings in the peer review process that is required to publish in a journal, this process also has some key advantages that can impact the number of citations a paper gets. As there is no formal peer review before preprints or working papers become available online, they can potentially include errors, key omissions, flaws or caveats. The peer review process thus acts as a quality control of research papers and can foster trust in the science system. Additional potential benefits include reaching a new and potentially wider audience and an improved readability due to a more standardized formatting.

Because there are both factors which suggest that working papers should get more citations (e.g. timeliness) and factors which suggest that journal articles should get more citations (e.g. potential flaws in working papers), it is not obvious whether publishing in a journal increases the citation count. If publishing an article in a peer-reviewed journal has little or no impact on the citations a paper receives, this would put into question some of the motivations for publishing an article as well as the importance of working papers relative to published articles.

In order to measure the impact of publishing in a journal, we first denote the collection of benefits that could lead to additional citations the stamp of approval effect from publishing in a peer-reviewed journal. This name is chosen, as at least the editor and the peer reviewers need to give their approval for publication. We then choose to measure this benefit in terms of citations by comparing working paper articles that have been published either in a peer reviewed journal or not. Our data set comprises about 28,000 papers published in four major economics working paper series. The bibliometric data builds upon the RePEc website (Research Papers in Economics, www.repec.org ) and the citation data were retrieved from CitEc, which is closely related to RePEc. Footnote 3 We estimate the stamp of approval effect on the yearly citation count.

We focus on the potential increase in citations due to publishing in a journal article but there are additional benefits like prestige or tenure and promotion which can be important reasons to go through the publishing process as well. However, as citations tend to play a role for these benefits as well, our findings can have some relevance for those benefits as well. Specifically, our results suggest that the stamp of approval effect leads to a doubling in the number of yearly citations for journal articles and hence it makes sense to attribute a higher value to journal publications than working papers.

This paper also complements the literature on the value of preprints and working papers. Specifically, it has been shown extensively that journal articles which are available as preprints and working papers (and open access) as well are cited more often (e.g. Sarabipour et al. ( 2019 ), Fraser et al. ( 2020 ), Fu and Hughey ( 2019 ), or Wohlrabe and Bürgi (forthcoming)). We show here that the reverse is true also and hence the stamp of approval is important as well.

The remainder of the paper is structured as follows: the next section describes the data used followed by the panel regressions. The following section offers robustness checks, and the final section concludes.

We build upon the data set of Baumann and Wohlrabe ( 2020a ) who also provide more background information. The four working paper series considered stand out with respect to prestige and influence in the field of economics. They belong to the most cited and downloaded working paper series on RePEc. Footnote 4 The four series are published by networks of economists. Submitting papers to the series is only allowed to members of the corresponding networks and joining the network is only possible by invitation. Once an author is a member of the specific network he or she is free to submit any working paper. With this procedure, the networks want to assure a specific level of quality of the submitted papers as invitations are only issued to established or promising researchers.

The original data set comprises 28,877 working papers from between 2000 and 2012. For our analysis we exclude those working papers that have been published as a chapter in a book (1120). This leaves us with 27,757 papers. The majority of papers has been published in the NBER working paper series (10,364), closely followed by CEPR (6699) and IZA (6904). The least number of papers were issued in the CESifo series (3790). In Table 1 , we show how many papers of each series have been published in a refereed journal. In total and for each series this share is approximately 50%. These numbers differ a little bit from the estimates provided by Baumann and Wohlrabe ( 2020a ) who report a share of about 66% based on a random sample. In the robustness section we address this issue in more detail.

Our citation data comes from CitEc ( http://citec.repec.org/ ). This website provides the citation data for the RePEc network. Footnote 5 Each working paper and journal article has a unique identifier. We used this identifier to extract citations on a yearly basis for working papers and the journal articles separately. However, as the working paper citations contain the journal citations and vice versa, it is not possible to obtain accurate citation counts for the two versions separately. Due to this restriction, we use the maximum citations per year from either version as the citation count for our dependent variable. Footnote 6 As Baumann and Wohlrabe ( 2020a ) have shown, many papers have been published in several working paper series simultaneously. CitEc also consolidates citations across versions, i.e. it assigns citations received by one working paper version also to the other versions. Due to time delays in the consolidation process at CitEc, the citation numbers are not always identical across series. We therefore take always the maximum citation count across working papers.

In Table 1 we provide the descriptive statistics for the citation data. Besides the full sample, we also distinguish whether an article has been published in a journal or not. The average citation count across all working papers is 43. This number is higher for papers in the NBER series (61) and smaller for the IZA (25) and CESifo series (21). The citation distribution is quite dispersed as the standard deviation exceeds the mean considerably. This is also confirmed in the left graph of Fig. 1 . The most cited paper published in a journal is the one by Melitz ( 2003 ) which appeared both in the NBER and the CEPR working paper series. The article by Pesaran ( 2004 ) is the most cited paper (904) that never appeared in a journal. It was published both in the IZA and the CESifo working paper series. When comparing articles in our two subgroups, we see a clear difference between the citation counts. Articles published in a journal received 70 citations on average whereas the average citation counts for unpublished papers only amounts to 15. In the lower panel of Table 1 , we report the p-value of a two-sided non-parametric Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test. The null hypothesis of an equal median of citations is clearly rejected both for the full sample and the four series. Footnote 7 The results reported in Table 1 are supported by the kernel estimates of the citation distribution depicted in the left graph of Fig. 1 . Footnote 8 They show that most of the papers with 10 or fewer citations have not been published in a journal. Additionally, journal articles in our sample exhibit more mass compared to the control group across almost the entire citation distribution.

Kernel estimates for citations distributions

The comparisons so far might be biased as the publication date of working papers ranges from 2000 to 2012. So, more recent papers had less time to accumulate citations. Therefore, we repeat the analysis using a constant citation window of nine years starting in the publication year of the working paper. As Table 1 and Fig. 1 show that the results stay qualitatively the same, papers that are eventually published in a journal gather more citations. As expected, the citation counts are smaller due to the smaller citation window.

These simple mean comparisons leave out many of the factors which might drive citation counts of papers and do not necessarily reflect a precise estimate. See Bornmann and Daniel ( 2008 ) and Tahamtan and Bornmann ( 2019 ) for a literature overview. We address these issues in the next section.

Methodology and main results

Methodology.

In order to test the hypothesis that a journal publication leads to more citations, we first create a dummy variable that takes a value of 0 if the paper was only available as a working paper in a specific year and 1 otherwise (i.e. if it was published in a journal). Because this dummy takes value 1 in all years for papers that become journal articles in the first year, the stamp of approval effect cannot be separated from paper fixed effects and we exclude them from our analysis. This holds for 1878 articles. Baumann and Wohlrabe ( 2020b ) report more on the differences between the publication dates of working papers and the corresponding journal articles.

Due to the panel nature of our data set, we omit the controls used in the literature as they are either captured by the paper fixed effects (e.g. the number of authors, the working paper series or the number of working papers) or captured by time fixed effects (e.g. age of the papers). Footnote 9 In addition, the panel structure with fixed effects also controls for many unobservable characteristics specific to a paper that do not change over time and can influence the outcomes. For example, only the better papers might eventually be published in a journal and this quality difference is captured by paper fixed effects (FE). Footnote 10 In a first step we run a pooled regression and a random effects (RE) specification. The likelihood ratio test clearly rejects the pooled model in favor of the RE model ( p -value = 0.000). Similarly, the Hausman test rejects the RE model in favor of the FE model ( p -value = 0.000). We then estimate the following equation as our main specification:

where citpy are the citations per year for each article and journal is a dummy that takes value one for the years in which the journal article is available. \(\nu _i\) are the paper fixed effects and \(\mu _t\) the time fixed effects. These include also dummy variables representing each year in our data sets. This captures general citations trends. Negative binomial panel regressions with fixed effects would be natural choice for count data. However, these are not feasible (e.g. see Wooldridge ( 1999 )). Due to this limitation, we use Poisson regressions with both time and paper fixed effects instead. We run the regression both across all papers and for each working paper series individually and cluster the standard errors at the paper level. We report incident rate ratios (the exponential of the coefficients) and the effect is multiplicative. This means for example that an incident rate ratio of 2 implies a doubling of the number of yearly citations and 1 means no change in citations.

Main results

Table 2 reports the estimates both for the full sample and for each working paper series separately. The coefficient of the journal dummy is large and highly significant across all regressions. The estimates imply that the stamp of approval effect of publishing an article in a peer-reviewed journal results in more than a doubling of the yearly citation count relative to only making the article available as a working paper. This effect is not only statistically significant but also substantial in its size. Looking at the working paper series, the journal effect is larger for the CESifo and IZA working papers. For these, the publication in a journal leads to an increase in citations by a factor of around 2.5 while it is a touch smaller for NBER and CEPR working papers with an increase in citations by a factor of 2.3.

Initial robustness checks

A working paper might appear in multiple working paper series. This might cause the paper to reach a wider audience before becoming a journal article and hence the benefit from publishing it becomes smaller. To test this, we restrict our sample to papers that have been released only in one working paper series. The result in column 1 of Table 3 show that papers that are only in one working paper series indeed benefit more from being published. We can look at this argument also from a different perspective. Being released in only one working paper series and then either published in a journal or not might be an unfair comparison. The article finally published in a journal has an additional outlet and therefore a higher visibility. In order to account for that issue, we restrict our sample to articles published in a journal with only one working paper and compare them to articles available in two working paper series but not in a journal. Column 2 of Table 3 shows that the effect becomes a touch smaller but remains highly significant. In column 3 we report the outcome of a comparison between articles that appeared in two working paper series and in a journal with those that appeared in three working paper series but not in a journal. Again, publishing in a journal leads to a significantly higher citation count.

An additional concern is the issue of the time lag between working paper and journal publication. It could be the case that papers that take longer to get published in a journal have a large change in quality. For example, they might go through more review rounds and have more substantial revisions during the submission process. As a consequence, they might receive a larger benefit from publishing. As already noted, papers with identical publication years in both outlets are excluded by construction hence we took only those papers where the time lag is one year. This limits the revisions possible and hence the potential quality change of the paper. In the fourth column of Table 3 we show that the journal effect is larger for the papers which only had limited time for quality changes. This suggests that the (unobserved) quality change is not the main driver of our results.

Development for cumulative citation count for a matched sample. This figure shows the cumulative citations relative to the first year of the paper on the vertical axis for 151 matched papers that have at least 20 cumulative citations in the first three years. The blue line are papers that have been published in a journal in the third year and the red line are the matched papers that were not published. The years are on the horizontal axis

Our next robustness check concerns a potential endogeneity issue. Specifically, one could imagine that only better papers get published and worse papers remain working papers. An editor could see that a working paper has already accumulated a substantial number of citations and might have a positive bias towards these papers. This could cause our coefficients to capture the paper quality rather than the stamp of approval effect. In order to test this, we reduce our sample to papers that cumulatively received at least 20 citations in the first three years and in addition only keep published papers that were published in the third year of becoming available as working paper. These papers are then matched to similar working papers that have never appeared in a journal. Therefore, they have been issued in the same year and in the same working paper series. Furthermore, the cumulative citation ratio between two papers must have been between 0.9 and 1.1. Based on these conditions we were able to match 151 published papers. For each of the first seven years, we calculate the cumulative citations relative to the first year and average this number across the two groups. Figure 2 shows the resulting line for the published articles in blue and the line for the working papers in red plus the 90% confidence intervals. While both the published and unpublished papers have similar citations in the first three years, the published articles receive more citations once they get published. This suggests that there is indeed a stamp of approval effect, as the papers in both groups should have a similar quality based on the citations received in the first three years, but published papers receive more citations in later years.

Additional robustness checks

Accounting for non-tracked articles.

So far, we assumed that we were able to find all published articles corresponding to working papers. However, Baumann and Wohlrabe ( 2020a ) showed that the actual share of working papers in our sample which are finally published in a journal is about 66% using a random sub-sample (instead of the 50% we found). In this section, we want to make sure that our results are not driven by our potential inability to track all published papers. In order to test this, we repeat the regression in Table 2 but treat a random 30%, 20%, 10%, 5% and 1% of the published papers as if they had zero citations in every year. Specifically, we run a simulation with 1000 repetitions for each threshold where we randomly assign zero citations to the specified share of published articles. This simulation is equivalent to adding a similar percentage of the least cited unpublished working papers randomly to the published journals. Replacing 10% of the citations with zeros is equivalent to not having found around 1400 journal publications. Replacing the citations with zeros are also a clear worst-case scenario, as it is likely that at least some of the published articles we could not find have more than zero citations.

As Table 4 shows, all simulations have a positive and significant coefficient and the coefficient becomes smaller the more journal articles are changed to have 0 citations. The mean coefficient of the 1000 simulations is also reasonably close to the highest and lowest coefficient in the simulation, even if the difference is several standard errors. With 30% missed articles, the stamp of approval effect is smaller but still corresponds to a 75% increase in citations for articles that are published in a journal relative to the ones that remain working papers.

Skewness of the citation distribution

It is well-known that the citation distribution is skewed (e.g. see Seiler and Wohlrabe ( 2014 )). Our sample includes several papers that have very large numbers of citations which could potentially drive our results. Also, there is a number of papers that have never been cited, which could also impact our results. In order to check whether the papers with many citations drive our results, we repeat the regressions in Table 2 column 1 but exclude papers that have at least 1000, 500 and 100 citations from our sample. The results are presented in the first three columns of Table 5 .

Compared with the results where we did not exclude these papers, the impact of publishing a paper are broadly unchanged or there is a larger stamp of approval effect. This result is also robust to omitting the papers with zero citations as shown in column (4) and to omitting papers with both 0 citations in addition to the ones with at least 100 citations shown in the last column in Table 5 .

Further robustness checks

Finally, we consider two additional issues. First, our data has more observations for older papers than for newer ones as our sample stops in 2020 for all papers. This could potentially influence our results as this causes older papers to have a higher weight in the panel. In order to assess the impact of this, we repeat the regressions but only include the first nine years for each paper (a 9-year citation window). The results for this regression are shown in the first column of Table 6 . While the coefficient declines to a 90% increase, it is still highly significant.

Second and as mentioned in the methodology section, we have multiple sources for citations. CitEc reports citations for the working paper and for the journal article separately, even if both citation numbers contain citations for either. So far, we used the maximum of the two numbers as the journal citations in the analysis. In column 2 of Table 6 we report the regression result for the smaller of the two numbers. The coefficient and the significance are virtually unchanged when compared to the ones obtained in Table 2 .

This paper showed that the yearly citation count of working papers which are subsequently published in a journal more than doubles relative to unpublished working papers. This increase in citations is substantial, controlling for a number of observable and unobservable variables that are time or paper specific in a panel regression. There is thus a substantial stamp of approval effect when publishing in journals.

While we were able to identify what we call the stamp of approval effect, we were not able to identify what component of publishing an article causes this effect. There are many possible channels, which could cause this increase in citations. For example, the peer review process that approves and improves the paper or the additional outreach of a journal could both be potential causes that increase the citation count and we found evidence for both of these channels. This paper also focused on citations only. There are other potential benefits beyond citations to both the researcher and the field as a whole, which we did not address here.

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Citations: https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.wpseries.simple.html ; Downloads: https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.wpseries.download10.html .

We thank Jose Manuel Barrueco for help with the citation data. The citations were retrieved in February 2020.

Instead of the maximum, we also ran the estimations the minimum and our results remained qualitatively the same as shown in Table 6 .

We obtain the same results in case of two-sided t -test.

In order to increase readability, we capped the citations at 200.

This setup also controls for more sophisticated age structures as in Anauati et al. ( 2016 ) and is broadly in line with the structure in Fraser et al. ( 2020 ) or Fu and Hughey ( 2019 ).

Obviously, unobservable characteristics that change over time are not captured by the paper and time fixed effect like for example a quality change between the working paper and the published paper. We address this issue in “ Initial robustness checks ” section.

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Wohlrabe, K., Bürgi, C. What is the benefit from publishing a working paper in a journal in terms of citations? Evidence from economics. Scientometrics 126 , 4701–4714 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-021-03942-x

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Peer Review in Scientific Publications: Benefits, Critiques, & A Survival Guide

Jacalyn kelly.

1 Clinical Biochemistry, Department of Pediatric Laboratory Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Tara Sadeghieh

Khosrow adeli.

2 Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

3 Chair, Communications and Publications Division (CPD), International Federation for Sick Clinical Chemistry (IFCC), Milan, Italy

The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding publication of this article.

Peer review has been defined as a process of subjecting an author’s scholarly work, research or ideas to the scrutiny of others who are experts in the same field. It functions to encourage authors to meet the accepted high standards of their discipline and to control the dissemination of research data to ensure that unwarranted claims, unacceptable interpretations or personal views are not published without prior expert review. Despite its wide-spread use by most journals, the peer review process has also been widely criticised due to the slowness of the process to publish new findings and due to perceived bias by the editors and/or reviewers. Within the scientific community, peer review has become an essential component of the academic writing process. It helps ensure that papers published in scientific journals answer meaningful research questions and draw accurate conclusions based on professionally executed experimentation. Submission of low quality manuscripts has become increasingly prevalent, and peer review acts as a filter to prevent this work from reaching the scientific community. The major advantage of a peer review process is that peer-reviewed articles provide a trusted form of scientific communication. Since scientific knowledge is cumulative and builds on itself, this trust is particularly important. Despite the positive impacts of peer review, critics argue that the peer review process stifles innovation in experimentation, and acts as a poor screen against plagiarism. Despite its downfalls, there has not yet been a foolproof system developed to take the place of peer review, however, researchers have been looking into electronic means of improving the peer review process. Unfortunately, the recent explosion in online only/electronic journals has led to mass publication of a large number of scientific articles with little or no peer review. This poses significant risk to advances in scientific knowledge and its future potential. The current article summarizes the peer review process, highlights the pros and cons associated with different types of peer review, and describes new methods for improving peer review.

WHAT IS PEER REVIEW AND WHAT IS ITS PURPOSE?

Peer Review is defined as “a process of subjecting an author’s scholarly work, research or ideas to the scrutiny of others who are experts in the same field” ( 1 ). Peer review is intended to serve two primary purposes. Firstly, it acts as a filter to ensure that only high quality research is published, especially in reputable journals, by determining the validity, significance and originality of the study. Secondly, peer review is intended to improve the quality of manuscripts that are deemed suitable for publication. Peer reviewers provide suggestions to authors on how to improve the quality of their manuscripts, and also identify any errors that need correcting before publication.

HISTORY OF PEER REVIEW

The concept of peer review was developed long before the scholarly journal. In fact, the peer review process is thought to have been used as a method of evaluating written work since ancient Greece ( 2 ). The peer review process was first described by a physician named Ishaq bin Ali al-Rahwi of Syria, who lived from 854-931 CE, in his book Ethics of the Physician ( 2 ). There, he stated that physicians must take notes describing the state of their patients’ medical conditions upon each visit. Following treatment, the notes were scrutinized by a local medical council to determine whether the physician had met the required standards of medical care. If the medical council deemed that the appropriate standards were not met, the physician in question could receive a lawsuit from the maltreated patient ( 2 ).

The invention of the printing press in 1453 allowed written documents to be distributed to the general public ( 3 ). At this time, it became more important to regulate the quality of the written material that became publicly available, and editing by peers increased in prevalence. In 1620, Francis Bacon wrote the work Novum Organum, where he described what eventually became known as the first universal method for generating and assessing new science ( 3 ). His work was instrumental in shaping the Scientific Method ( 3 ). In 1665, the French Journal des sçavans and the English Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society were the first scientific journals to systematically publish research results ( 4 ). Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society is thought to be the first journal to formalize the peer review process in 1665 ( 5 ), however, it is important to note that peer review was initially introduced to help editors decide which manuscripts to publish in their journals, and at that time it did not serve to ensure the validity of the research ( 6 ). It did not take long for the peer review process to evolve, and shortly thereafter papers were distributed to reviewers with the intent of authenticating the integrity of the research study before publication. The Royal Society of Edinburgh adhered to the following peer review process, published in their Medical Essays and Observations in 1731: “Memoirs sent by correspondence are distributed according to the subject matter to those members who are most versed in these matters. The report of their identity is not known to the author.” ( 7 ). The Royal Society of London adopted this review procedure in 1752 and developed the “Committee on Papers” to review manuscripts before they were published in Philosophical Transactions ( 6 ).

Peer review in the systematized and institutionalized form has developed immensely since the Second World War, at least partly due to the large increase in scientific research during this period ( 7 ). It is now used not only to ensure that a scientific manuscript is experimentally and ethically sound, but also to determine which papers sufficiently meet the journal’s standards of quality and originality before publication. Peer review is now standard practice by most credible scientific journals, and is an essential part of determining the credibility and quality of work submitted.

IMPACT OF THE PEER REVIEW PROCESS

Peer review has become the foundation of the scholarly publication system because it effectively subjects an author’s work to the scrutiny of other experts in the field. Thus, it encourages authors to strive to produce high quality research that will advance the field. Peer review also supports and maintains integrity and authenticity in the advancement of science. A scientific hypothesis or statement is generally not accepted by the academic community unless it has been published in a peer-reviewed journal ( 8 ). The Institute for Scientific Information ( ISI ) only considers journals that are peer-reviewed as candidates to receive Impact Factors. Peer review is a well-established process which has been a formal part of scientific communication for over 300 years.

OVERVIEW OF THE PEER REVIEW PROCESS

The peer review process begins when a scientist completes a research study and writes a manuscript that describes the purpose, experimental design, results, and conclusions of the study. The scientist then submits this paper to a suitable journal that specializes in a relevant research field, a step referred to as pre-submission. The editors of the journal will review the paper to ensure that the subject matter is in line with that of the journal, and that it fits with the editorial platform. Very few papers pass this initial evaluation. If the journal editors feel the paper sufficiently meets these requirements and is written by a credible source, they will send the paper to accomplished researchers in the field for a formal peer review. Peer reviewers are also known as referees (this process is summarized in Figure 1 ). The role of the editor is to select the most appropriate manuscripts for the journal, and to implement and monitor the peer review process. Editors must ensure that peer reviews are conducted fairly, and in an effective and timely manner. They must also ensure that there are no conflicts of interest involved in the peer review process.

Overview of the review process

When a reviewer is provided with a paper, he or she reads it carefully and scrutinizes it to evaluate the validity of the science, the quality of the experimental design, and the appropriateness of the methods used. The reviewer also assesses the significance of the research, and judges whether the work will contribute to advancement in the field by evaluating the importance of the findings, and determining the originality of the research. Additionally, reviewers identify any scientific errors and references that are missing or incorrect. Peer reviewers give recommendations to the editor regarding whether the paper should be accepted, rejected, or improved before publication in the journal. The editor will mediate author-referee discussion in order to clarify the priority of certain referee requests, suggest areas that can be strengthened, and overrule reviewer recommendations that are beyond the study’s scope ( 9 ). If the paper is accepted, as per suggestion by the peer reviewer, the paper goes into the production stage, where it is tweaked and formatted by the editors, and finally published in the scientific journal. An overview of the review process is presented in Figure 1 .

WHO CONDUCTS REVIEWS?

Peer reviews are conducted by scientific experts with specialized knowledge on the content of the manuscript, as well as by scientists with a more general knowledge base. Peer reviewers can be anyone who has competence and expertise in the subject areas that the journal covers. Reviewers can range from young and up-and-coming researchers to old masters in the field. Often, the young reviewers are the most responsive and deliver the best quality reviews, though this is not always the case. On average, a reviewer will conduct approximately eight reviews per year, according to a study on peer review by the Publishing Research Consortium (PRC) ( 7 ). Journals will often have a pool of reviewers with diverse backgrounds to allow for many different perspectives. They will also keep a rather large reviewer bank, so that reviewers do not get burnt out, overwhelmed or time constrained from reviewing multiple articles simultaneously.

WHY DO REVIEWERS REVIEW?

Referees are typically not paid to conduct peer reviews and the process takes considerable effort, so the question is raised as to what incentive referees have to review at all. Some feel an academic duty to perform reviews, and are of the mentality that if their peers are expected to review their papers, then they should review the work of their peers as well. Reviewers may also have personal contacts with editors, and may want to assist as much as possible. Others review to keep up-to-date with the latest developments in their field, and reading new scientific papers is an effective way to do so. Some scientists use peer review as an opportunity to advance their own research as it stimulates new ideas and allows them to read about new experimental techniques. Other reviewers are keen on building associations with prestigious journals and editors and becoming part of their community, as sometimes reviewers who show dedication to the journal are later hired as editors. Some scientists see peer review as a chance to become aware of the latest research before their peers, and thus be first to develop new insights from the material. Finally, in terms of career development, peer reviewing can be desirable as it is often noted on one’s resume or CV. Many institutions consider a researcher’s involvement in peer review when assessing their performance for promotions ( 11 ). Peer reviewing can also be an effective way for a scientist to show their superiors that they are committed to their scientific field ( 5 ).

ARE REVIEWERS KEEN TO REVIEW?

A 2009 international survey of 4000 peer reviewers conducted by the charity Sense About Science at the British Science Festival at the University of Surrey, found that 90% of reviewers were keen to peer review ( 12 ). One third of respondents to the survey said they were happy to review up to five papers per year, and an additional one third of respondents were happy to review up to ten.

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO REVIEW ONE PAPER?

On average, it takes approximately six hours to review one paper ( 12 ), however, this number may vary greatly depending on the content of the paper and the nature of the peer reviewer. One in every 100 participants in the “Sense About Science” survey claims to have taken more than 100 hours to review their last paper ( 12 ).

HOW TO DETERMINE IF A JOURNAL IS PEER REVIEWED

Ulrichsweb is a directory that provides information on over 300,000 periodicals, including information regarding which journals are peer reviewed ( 13 ). After logging into the system using an institutional login (eg. from the University of Toronto), search terms, journal titles or ISSN numbers can be entered into the search bar. The database provides the title, publisher, and country of origin of the journal, and indicates whether the journal is still actively publishing. The black book symbol (labelled ‘refereed’) reveals that the journal is peer reviewed.

THE EVALUATION CRITERIA FOR PEER REVIEW OF SCIENTIFIC PAPERS

As previously mentioned, when a reviewer receives a scientific manuscript, he/she will first determine if the subject matter is well suited for the content of the journal. The reviewer will then consider whether the research question is important and original, a process which may be aided by a literature scan of review articles.

Scientific papers submitted for peer review usually follow a specific structure that begins with the title, followed by the abstract, introduction, methodology, results, discussion, conclusions, and references. The title must be descriptive and include the concept and organism investigated, and potentially the variable manipulated and the systems used in the study. The peer reviewer evaluates if the title is descriptive enough, and ensures that it is clear and concise. A study by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) published by the Oxford University Press in 2006 indicated that the title of a manuscript plays a significant role in determining reader interest, as 72% of respondents said they could usually judge whether an article will be of interest to them based on the title and the author, while 13% of respondents claimed to always be able to do so ( 14 ).

The abstract is a summary of the paper, which briefly mentions the background or purpose, methods, key results, and major conclusions of the study. The peer reviewer assesses whether the abstract is sufficiently informative and if the content of the abstract is consistent with the rest of the paper. The NAR study indicated that 40% of respondents could determine whether an article would be of interest to them based on the abstract alone 60-80% of the time, while 32% could judge an article based on the abstract 80-100% of the time ( 14 ). This demonstrates that the abstract alone is often used to assess the value of an article.

The introduction of a scientific paper presents the research question in the context of what is already known about the topic, in order to identify why the question being studied is of interest to the scientific community, and what gap in knowledge the study aims to fill ( 15 ). The introduction identifies the study’s purpose and scope, briefly describes the general methods of investigation, and outlines the hypothesis and predictions ( 15 ). The peer reviewer determines whether the introduction provides sufficient background information on the research topic, and ensures that the research question and hypothesis are clearly identifiable.

The methods section describes the experimental procedures, and explains why each experiment was conducted. The methods section also includes the equipment and reagents used in the investigation. The methods section should be detailed enough that it can be used it to repeat the experiment ( 15 ). Methods are written in the past tense and in the active voice. The peer reviewer assesses whether the appropriate methods were used to answer the research question, and if they were written with sufficient detail. If information is missing from the methods section, it is the peer reviewer’s job to identify what details need to be added.

The results section is where the outcomes of the experiment and trends in the data are explained without judgement, bias or interpretation ( 15 ). This section can include statistical tests performed on the data, as well as figures and tables in addition to the text. The peer reviewer ensures that the results are described with sufficient detail, and determines their credibility. Reviewers also confirm that the text is consistent with the information presented in tables and figures, and that all figures and tables included are important and relevant ( 15 ). The peer reviewer will also make sure that table and figure captions are appropriate both contextually and in length, and that tables and figures present the data accurately.

The discussion section is where the data is analyzed. Here, the results are interpreted and related to past studies ( 15 ). The discussion describes the meaning and significance of the results in terms of the research question and hypothesis, and states whether the hypothesis was supported or rejected. This section may also provide possible explanations for unusual results and suggestions for future research ( 15 ). The discussion should end with a conclusions section that summarizes the major findings of the investigation. The peer reviewer determines whether the discussion is clear and focused, and whether the conclusions are an appropriate interpretation of the results. Reviewers also ensure that the discussion addresses the limitations of the study, any anomalies in the results, the relationship of the study to previous research, and the theoretical implications and practical applications of the study.

The references are found at the end of the paper, and list all of the information sources cited in the text to describe the background, methods, and/or interpret results. Depending on the citation method used, the references are listed in alphabetical order according to author last name, or numbered according to the order in which they appear in the paper. The peer reviewer ensures that references are used appropriately, cited accurately, formatted correctly, and that none are missing.

Finally, the peer reviewer determines whether the paper is clearly written and if the content seems logical. After thoroughly reading through the entire manuscript, they determine whether it meets the journal’s standards for publication,

and whether it falls within the top 25% of papers in its field ( 16 ) to determine priority for publication. An overview of what a peer reviewer looks for when evaluating a manuscript, in order of importance, is presented in Figure 2 .

How a peer review evaluates a manuscript

To increase the chance of success in the peer review process, the author must ensure that the paper fully complies with the journal guidelines before submission. The author must also be open to criticism and suggested revisions, and learn from mistakes made in previous submissions.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF PEER REVIEW

The peer review process is generally conducted in one of three ways: open review, single-blind review, or double-blind review. In an open review, both the author of the paper and the peer reviewer know one another’s identity. Alternatively, in single-blind review, the reviewer’s identity is kept private, but the author’s identity is revealed to the reviewer. In double-blind review, the identities of both the reviewer and author are kept anonymous. Open peer review is advantageous in that it prevents the reviewer from leaving malicious comments, being careless, or procrastinating completion of the review ( 2 ). It encourages reviewers to be open and honest without being disrespectful. Open reviewing also discourages plagiarism amongst authors ( 2 ). On the other hand, open peer review can also prevent reviewers from being honest for fear of developing bad rapport with the author. The reviewer may withhold or tone down their criticisms in order to be polite ( 2 ). This is especially true when younger reviewers are given a more esteemed author’s work, in which case the reviewer may be hesitant to provide criticism for fear that it will damper their relationship with a superior ( 2 ). According to the Sense About Science survey, editors find that completely open reviewing decreases the number of people willing to participate, and leads to reviews of little value ( 12 ). In the aforementioned study by the PRC, only 23% of authors surveyed had experience with open peer review ( 7 ).

Single-blind peer review is by far the most common. In the PRC study, 85% of authors surveyed had experience with single-blind peer review ( 7 ). This method is advantageous as the reviewer is more likely to provide honest feedback when their identity is concealed ( 2 ). This allows the reviewer to make independent decisions without the influence of the author ( 2 ). The main disadvantage of reviewer anonymity, however, is that reviewers who receive manuscripts on subjects similar to their own research may be tempted to delay completing the review in order to publish their own data first ( 2 ).

Double-blind peer review is advantageous as it prevents the reviewer from being biased against the author based on their country of origin or previous work ( 2 ). This allows the paper to be judged based on the quality of the content, rather than the reputation of the author. The Sense About Science survey indicates that 76% of researchers think double-blind peer review is a good idea ( 12 ), and the PRC survey indicates that 45% of authors have had experience with double-blind peer review ( 7 ). The disadvantage of double-blind peer review is that, especially in niche areas of research, it can sometimes be easy for the reviewer to determine the identity of the author based on writing style, subject matter or self-citation, and thus, impart bias ( 2 ).

Masking the author’s identity from peer reviewers, as is the case in double-blind review, is generally thought to minimize bias and maintain review quality. A study by Justice et al. in 1998 investigated whether masking author identity affected the quality of the review ( 17 ). One hundred and eighteen manuscripts were randomized; 26 were peer reviewed as normal, and 92 were moved into the ‘intervention’ arm, where editor quality assessments were completed for 77 manuscripts and author quality assessments were completed for 40 manuscripts ( 17 ). There was no perceived difference in quality between the masked and unmasked reviews. Additionally, the masking itself was often unsuccessful, especially with well-known authors ( 17 ). However, a previous study conducted by McNutt et al. had different results ( 18 ). In this case, blinding was successful 73% of the time, and they found that when author identity was masked, the quality of review was slightly higher ( 18 ). Although Justice et al. argued that this difference was too small to be consequential, their study targeted only biomedical journals, and the results cannot be generalized to journals of a different subject matter ( 17 ). Additionally, there were problems masking the identities of well-known authors, introducing a flaw in the methods. Regardless, Justice et al. concluded that masking author identity from reviewers may not improve review quality ( 17 ).

In addition to open, single-blind and double-blind peer review, there are two experimental forms of peer review. In some cases, following publication, papers may be subjected to post-publication peer review. As many papers are now published online, the scientific community has the opportunity to comment on these papers, engage in online discussions and post a formal review. For example, online publishers PLOS and BioMed Central have enabled scientists to post comments on published papers if they are registered users of the site ( 10 ). Philica is another journal launched with this experimental form of peer review. Only 8% of authors surveyed in the PRC study had experience with post-publication review ( 7 ). Another experimental form of peer review called Dynamic Peer Review has also emerged. Dynamic peer review is conducted on websites such as Naboj, which allow scientists to conduct peer reviews on articles in the preprint media ( 19 ). The peer review is conducted on repositories and is a continuous process, which allows the public to see both the article and the reviews as the article is being developed ( 19 ). Dynamic peer review helps prevent plagiarism as the scientific community will already be familiar with the work before the peer reviewed version appears in print ( 19 ). Dynamic review also reduces the time lag between manuscript submission and publishing. An example of a preprint server is the ‘arXiv’ developed by Paul Ginsparg in 1991, which is used primarily by physicists ( 19 ). These alternative forms of peer review are still un-established and experimental. Traditional peer review is time-tested and still highly utilized. All methods of peer review have their advantages and deficiencies, and all are prone to error.

PEER REVIEW OF OPEN ACCESS JOURNALS

Open access (OA) journals are becoming increasingly popular as they allow the potential for widespread distribution of publications in a timely manner ( 20 ). Nevertheless, there can be issues regarding the peer review process of open access journals. In a study published in Science in 2013, John Bohannon submitted 304 slightly different versions of a fictional scientific paper (written by a fake author, working out of a non-existent institution) to a selected group of OA journals. This study was performed in order to determine whether papers submitted to OA journals are properly reviewed before publication in comparison to subscription-based journals. The journals in this study were selected from the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and Biall’s List, a list of journals which are potentially predatory, and all required a fee for publishing ( 21 ). Of the 304 journals, 157 accepted a fake paper, suggesting that acceptance was based on financial interest rather than the quality of article itself, while 98 journals promptly rejected the fakes ( 21 ). Although this study highlights useful information on the problems associated with lower quality publishers that do not have an effective peer review system in place, the article also generalizes the study results to all OA journals, which can be detrimental to the general perception of OA journals. There were two limitations of the study that made it impossible to accurately determine the relationship between peer review and OA journals: 1) there was no control group (subscription-based journals), and 2) the fake papers were sent to a non-randomized selection of journals, resulting in bias.

JOURNAL ACCEPTANCE RATES

Based on a recent survey, the average acceptance rate for papers submitted to scientific journals is about 50% ( 7 ). Twenty percent of the submitted manuscripts that are not accepted are rejected prior to review, and 30% are rejected following review ( 7 ). Of the 50% accepted, 41% are accepted with the condition of revision, while only 9% are accepted without the request for revision ( 7 ).

SATISFACTION WITH THE PEER REVIEW SYSTEM

Based on a recent survey by the PRC, 64% of academics are satisfied with the current system of peer review, and only 12% claimed to be ‘dissatisfied’ ( 7 ). The large majority, 85%, agreed with the statement that ‘scientific communication is greatly helped by peer review’ ( 7 ). There was a similarly high level of support (83%) for the idea that peer review ‘provides control in scientific communication’ ( 7 ).

HOW TO PEER REVIEW EFFECTIVELY

The following are ten tips on how to be an effective peer reviewer as indicated by Brian Lucey, an expert on the subject ( 22 ):

1) Be professional

Peer review is a mutual responsibility among fellow scientists, and scientists are expected, as part of the academic community, to take part in peer review. If one is to expect others to review their work, they should commit to reviewing the work of others as well, and put effort into it.

2) Be pleasant

If the paper is of low quality, suggest that it be rejected, but do not leave ad hominem comments. There is no benefit to being ruthless.

3) Read the invite

When emailing a scientist to ask them to conduct a peer review, the majority of journals will provide a link to either accept or reject. Do not respond to the email, respond to the link.

4) Be helpful

Suggest how the authors can overcome the shortcomings in their paper. A review should guide the author on what is good and what needs work from the reviewer’s perspective.

5) Be scientific

The peer reviewer plays the role of a scientific peer, not an editor for proofreading or decision-making. Don’t fill a review with comments on editorial and typographic issues. Instead, focus on adding value with scientific knowledge and commenting on the credibility of the research conducted and conclusions drawn. If the paper has a lot of typographical errors, suggest that it be professionally proof edited as part of the review.

6) Be timely

Stick to the timeline given when conducting a peer review. Editors track who is reviewing what and when and will know if someone is late on completing a review. It is important to be timely both out of respect for the journal and the author, as well as to not develop a reputation of being late for review deadlines.

7) Be realistic

The peer reviewer must be realistic about the work presented, the changes they suggest and their role. Peer reviewers may set the bar too high for the paper they are editing by proposing changes that are too ambitious and editors must override them.

8) Be empathetic

Ensure that the review is scientific, helpful and courteous. Be sensitive and respectful with word choice and tone in a review.

Remember that both specialists and generalists can provide valuable insight when peer reviewing. Editors will try to get both specialised and general reviewers for any particular paper to allow for different perspectives. If someone is asked to review, the editor has determined they have a valid and useful role to play, even if the paper is not in their area of expertise.

10) Be organised

A review requires structure and logical flow. A reviewer should proofread their review before submitting it for structural, grammatical and spelling errors as well as for clarity. Most publishers provide short guides on structuring a peer review on their website. Begin with an overview of the proposed improvements; then provide feedback on the paper structure, the quality of data sources and methods of investigation used, the logical flow of argument, and the validity of conclusions drawn. Then provide feedback on style, voice and lexical concerns, with suggestions on how to improve.

In addition, the American Physiology Society (APS) recommends in its Peer Review 101 Handout that peer reviewers should put themselves in both the editor’s and author’s shoes to ensure that they provide what both the editor and the author need and expect ( 11 ). To please the editor, the reviewer should ensure that the peer review is completed on time, and that it provides clear explanations to back up recommendations. To be helpful to the author, the reviewer must ensure that their feedback is constructive. It is suggested that the reviewer take time to think about the paper; they should read it once, wait at least a day, and then re-read it before writing the review ( 11 ). The APS also suggests that Graduate students and researchers pay attention to how peer reviewers edit their work, as well as to what edits they find helpful, in order to learn how to peer review effectively ( 11 ). Additionally, it is suggested that Graduate students practice reviewing by editing their peers’ papers and asking a faculty member for feedback on their efforts. It is recommended that young scientists offer to peer review as often as possible in order to become skilled at the process ( 11 ). The majority of students, fellows and trainees do not get formal training in peer review, but rather learn by observing their mentors. According to the APS, one acquires experience through networking and referrals, and should therefore try to strengthen relationships with journal editors by offering to review manuscripts ( 11 ). The APS also suggests that experienced reviewers provide constructive feedback to students and junior colleagues on their peer review efforts, and encourages them to peer review to demonstrate the importance of this process in improving science ( 11 ).

The peer reviewer should only comment on areas of the manuscript that they are knowledgeable about ( 23 ). If there is any section of the manuscript they feel they are not qualified to review, they should mention this in their comments and not provide further feedback on that section. The peer reviewer is not permitted to share any part of the manuscript with a colleague (even if they may be more knowledgeable in the subject matter) without first obtaining permission from the editor ( 23 ). If a peer reviewer comes across something they are unsure of in the paper, they can consult the literature to try and gain insight. It is important for scientists to remember that if a paper can be improved by the expertise of one of their colleagues, the journal must be informed of the colleague’s help, and approval must be obtained for their colleague to read the protected document. Additionally, the colleague must be identified in the confidential comments to the editor, in order to ensure that he/she is appropriately credited for any contributions ( 23 ). It is the job of the reviewer to make sure that the colleague assisting is aware of the confidentiality of the peer review process ( 23 ). Once the review is complete, the manuscript must be destroyed and cannot be saved electronically by the reviewers ( 23 ).

COMMON ERRORS IN SCIENTIFIC PAPERS

When performing a peer review, there are some common scientific errors to look out for. Most of these errors are violations of logic and common sense: these may include contradicting statements, unwarranted conclusions, suggestion of causation when there is only support for correlation, inappropriate extrapolation, circular reasoning, or pursuit of a trivial question ( 24 ). It is also common for authors to suggest that two variables are different because the effects of one variable are statistically significant while the effects of the other variable are not, rather than directly comparing the two variables ( 24 ). Authors sometimes oversee a confounding variable and do not control for it, or forget to include important details on how their experiments were controlled or the physical state of the organisms studied ( 24 ). Another common fault is the author’s failure to define terms or use words with precision, as these practices can mislead readers ( 24 ). Jargon and/or misused terms can be a serious problem in papers. Inaccurate statements about specific citations are also a common occurrence ( 24 ). Additionally, many studies produce knowledge that can be applied to areas of science outside the scope of the original study, therefore it is better for reviewers to look at the novelty of the idea, conclusions, data, and methodology, rather than scrutinize whether or not the paper answered the specific question at hand ( 24 ). Although it is important to recognize these points, when performing a review it is generally better practice for the peer reviewer to not focus on a checklist of things that could be wrong, but rather carefully identify the problems specific to each paper and continuously ask themselves if anything is missing ( 24 ). An extremely detailed description of how to conduct peer review effectively is presented in the paper How I Review an Original Scientific Article written by Frederic G. Hoppin, Jr. It can be accessed through the American Physiological Society website under the Peer Review Resources section.

CRITICISM OF PEER REVIEW

A major criticism of peer review is that there is little evidence that the process actually works, that it is actually an effective screen for good quality scientific work, and that it actually improves the quality of scientific literature. As a 2002 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association concluded, ‘Editorial peer review, although widely used, is largely untested and its effects are uncertain’ ( 25 ). Critics also argue that peer review is not effective at detecting errors. Highlighting this point, an experiment by Godlee et al. published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) inserted eight deliberate errors into a paper that was nearly ready for publication, and then sent the paper to 420 potential reviewers ( 7 ). Of the 420 reviewers that received the paper, 221 (53%) responded, the average number of errors spotted by reviewers was two, no reviewer spotted more than five errors, and 35 reviewers (16%) did not spot any.

Another criticism of peer review is that the process is not conducted thoroughly by scientific conferences with the goal of obtaining large numbers of submitted papers. Such conferences often accept any paper sent in, regardless of its credibility or the prevalence of errors, because the more papers they accept, the more money they can make from author registration fees ( 26 ). This misconduct was exposed in 2014 by three MIT graduate students by the names of Jeremy Stribling, Dan Aguayo and Maxwell Krohn, who developed a simple computer program called SCIgen that generates nonsense papers and presents them as scientific papers ( 26 ). Subsequently, a nonsense SCIgen paper submitted to a conference was promptly accepted. Nature recently reported that French researcher Cyril Labbé discovered that sixteen SCIgen nonsense papers had been used by the German academic publisher Springer ( 26 ). Over 100 nonsense papers generated by SCIgen were published by the US Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) ( 26 ). Both organisations have been working to remove the papers. Labbé developed a program to detect SCIgen papers and has made it freely available to ensure publishers and conference organizers do not accept nonsense work in the future. It is available at this link: http://scigendetect.on.imag.fr/main.php ( 26 ).

Additionally, peer review is often criticized for being unable to accurately detect plagiarism. However, many believe that detecting plagiarism cannot practically be included as a component of peer review. As explained by Alice Tuff, development manager at Sense About Science, ‘The vast majority of authors and reviewers think peer review should detect plagiarism (81%) but only a minority (38%) think it is capable. The academic time involved in detecting plagiarism through peer review would cause the system to grind to a halt’ ( 27 ). Publishing house Elsevier began developing electronic plagiarism tools with the help of journal editors in 2009 to help improve this issue ( 27 ).

It has also been argued that peer review has lowered research quality by limiting creativity amongst researchers. Proponents of this view claim that peer review has repressed scientists from pursuing innovative research ideas and bold research questions that have the potential to make major advances and paradigm shifts in the field, as they believe that this work will likely be rejected by their peers upon review ( 28 ). Indeed, in some cases peer review may result in rejection of innovative research, as some studies may not seem particularly strong initially, yet may be capable of yielding very interesting and useful developments when examined under different circumstances, or in the light of new information ( 28 ). Scientists that do not believe in peer review argue that the process stifles the development of ingenious ideas, and thus the release of fresh knowledge and new developments into the scientific community.

Another issue that peer review is criticized for, is that there are a limited number of people that are competent to conduct peer review compared to the vast number of papers that need reviewing. An enormous number of papers published (1.3 million papers in 23,750 journals in 2006), but the number of competent peer reviewers available could not have reviewed them all ( 29 ). Thus, people who lack the required expertise to analyze the quality of a research paper are conducting reviews, and weak papers are being accepted as a result. It is now possible to publish any paper in an obscure journal that claims to be peer-reviewed, though the paper or journal itself could be substandard ( 29 ). On a similar note, the US National Library of Medicine indexes 39 journals that specialize in alternative medicine, and though they all identify themselves as “peer-reviewed”, they rarely publish any high quality research ( 29 ). This highlights the fact that peer review of more controversial or specialized work is typically performed by people who are interested and hold similar views or opinions as the author, which can cause bias in their review. For instance, a paper on homeopathy is likely to be reviewed by fellow practicing homeopaths, and thus is likely to be accepted as credible, though other scientists may find the paper to be nonsense ( 29 ). In some cases, papers are initially published, but their credibility is challenged at a later date and they are subsequently retracted. Retraction Watch is a website dedicated to revealing papers that have been retracted after publishing, potentially due to improper peer review ( 30 ).

Additionally, despite its many positive outcomes, peer review is also criticized for being a delay to the dissemination of new knowledge into the scientific community, and as an unpaid-activity that takes scientists’ time away from activities that they would otherwise prioritize, such as research and teaching, for which they are paid ( 31 ). As described by Eva Amsen, Outreach Director for F1000Research, peer review was originally developed as a means of helping editors choose which papers to publish when journals had to limit the number of papers they could print in one issue ( 32 ). However, nowadays most journals are available online, either exclusively or in addition to print, and many journals have very limited printing runs ( 32 ). Since there are no longer page limits to journals, any good work can and should be published. Consequently, being selective for the purpose of saving space in a journal is no longer a valid excuse that peer reviewers can use to reject a paper ( 32 ). However, some reviewers have used this excuse when they have personal ulterior motives, such as getting their own research published first.

RECENT INITIATIVES TOWARDS IMPROVING PEER REVIEW

F1000Research was launched in January 2013 by Faculty of 1000 as an open access journal that immediately publishes papers (after an initial check to ensure that the paper is in fact produced by a scientist and has not been plagiarised), and then conducts transparent post-publication peer review ( 32 ). F1000Research aims to prevent delays in new science reaching the academic community that are caused by prolonged publication times ( 32 ). It also aims to make peer reviewing more fair by eliminating any anonymity, which prevents reviewers from delaying the completion of a review so they can publish their own similar work first ( 32 ). F1000Research offers completely open peer review, where everything is published, including the name of the reviewers, their review reports, and the editorial decision letters ( 32 ).

PeerJ was founded by Jason Hoyt and Peter Binfield in June 2012 as an open access, peer reviewed scholarly journal for the Biological and Medical Sciences ( 33 ). PeerJ selects articles to publish based only on scientific and methodological soundness, not on subjective determinants of ‘impact ’, ‘novelty’ or ‘interest’ ( 34 ). It works on a “lifetime publishing plan” model which charges scientists for publishing plans that give them lifetime rights to publish with PeerJ, rather than charging them per publication ( 34 ). PeerJ also encourages open peer review, and authors are given the option to post the full peer review history of their submission with their published article ( 34 ). PeerJ also offers a pre-print review service called PeerJ Pre-prints, in which paper drafts are reviewed before being sent to PeerJ to publish ( 34 ).

Rubriq is an independent peer review service designed by Shashi Mudunuri and Keith Collier to improve the peer review system ( 35 ). Rubriq is intended to decrease redundancy in the peer review process so that the time lost in redundant reviewing can be put back into research ( 35 ). According to Keith Collier, over 15 million hours are lost each year to redundant peer review, as papers get rejected from one journal and are subsequently submitted to a less prestigious journal where they are reviewed again ( 35 ). Authors often have to submit their manuscript to multiple journals, and are often rejected multiple times before they find the right match. This process could take months or even years ( 35 ). Rubriq makes peer review portable in order to help authors choose the journal that is best suited for their manuscript from the beginning, thus reducing the time before their paper is published ( 35 ). Rubriq operates under an author-pay model, in which the author pays a fee and their manuscript undergoes double-blind peer review by three expert academic reviewers using a standardized scorecard ( 35 ). The majority of the author’s fee goes towards a reviewer honorarium ( 35 ). The papers are also screened for plagiarism using iThenticate ( 35 ). Once the manuscript has been reviewed by the three experts, the most appropriate journal for submission is determined based on the topic and quality of the paper ( 35 ). The paper is returned to the author in 1-2 weeks with the Rubriq Report ( 35 ). The author can then submit their paper to the suggested journal with the Rubriq Report attached. The Rubriq Report will give the journal editors a much stronger incentive to consider the paper as it shows that three experts have recommended the paper to them ( 35 ). Rubriq also has its benefits for reviewers; the Rubriq scorecard gives structure to the peer review process, and thus makes it consistent and efficient, which decreases time and stress for the reviewer. Reviewers also receive feedback on their reviews and most significantly, they are compensated for their time ( 35 ). Journals also benefit, as they receive pre-screened papers, reducing the number of papers sent to their own reviewers, which often end up rejected ( 35 ). This can reduce reviewer fatigue, and allow only higher-quality articles to be sent to their peer reviewers ( 35 ).

According to Eva Amsen, peer review and scientific publishing are moving in a new direction, in which all papers will be posted online, and a post-publication peer review will take place that is independent of specific journal criteria and solely focused on improving paper quality ( 32 ). Journals will then choose papers that they find relevant based on the peer reviews and publish those papers as a collection ( 32 ). In this process, peer review and individual journals are uncoupled ( 32 ). In Keith Collier’s opinion, post-publication peer review is likely to become more prevalent as a complement to pre-publication peer review, but not as a replacement ( 35 ). Post-publication peer review will not serve to identify errors and fraud but will provide an additional measurement of impact ( 35 ). Collier also believes that as journals and publishers consolidate into larger systems, there will be stronger potential for “cascading” and shared peer review ( 35 ).

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Peer review has become fundamental in assisting editors in selecting credible, high quality, novel and interesting research papers to publish in scientific journals and to ensure the correction of any errors or issues present in submitted papers. Though the peer review process still has some flaws and deficiencies, a more suitable screening method for scientific papers has not yet been proposed or developed. Researchers have begun and must continue to look for means of addressing the current issues with peer review to ensure that it is a full-proof system that ensures only quality research papers are released into the scientific community.