Advice for reviewers

 Thanks a lot for your evaluation of these manuscripts submitted for publication in Acta Pharmacologica Sinica. We would like to express our sincere appreciation for your contribution to the journal.

1.       Are these reasons why you should not carry out the review? Are you prejudiced or compromised in any way and thus not completely objective? Have you already reviewed the manuscript for another journal and perhaps recommended against its publication? In that case, the manuscript should be reviewed by someone else to ensure objectivity. Do you have time to review the manuscript? If not, return it immediately and suggest another reviewer: alternatively ask the editor if you can hand the manuscript over to one of your colleagues.

2.       You are being asked to comment on a study and its presentation, carried out and written by another colleague. What you are doing is to peer review.  You are not a judge; you and the editor are the guardians of publication and ethical standards.

3.       The review is in principle confidential----a correspondence between you and the editor. If the policy of the journal allows, you may waive anonymity. This is recommended by many journals and especially if your review is negative----it is more honest to give your name. The progress of science does not lie in anonymity: dialogue is a better way. If you start a discussion with the author, the editor should know about it.

4.       The principle of confidence also implies that you should not in any way use or exploit the material for your own purpose.

5.       Decide which parts of the study/manuscript you are competent to comment on and keep to those. Explain the reasons to the editor. Do not say anything about those aspects you cannot evaluate.

6.       Regard the manuscript as being written as a first effort by your favourite pupil, or by your co-worker; then it is easy not to be antagonistic, sarcastic, ironic or acidic----be friendly instead. Editors do not like nastiness. Suggest alternatives instead of sneering. Try always to be fair and constructive----avoid being negative and destructive. Be open-minded to authors working with other methods or following other paradigms than yourself would chosen. You have been asked to take the place of a possibly non-existent supervisor---help the author, try to sharpen argument, analysis, interpretation and synthesis. If the study is problematic, what are the possible positive values? Point out the good ideas and try to help the author to elaborate on them for further work. Remember that if you are only negative the review may be poorly received and the results of the study may be buried for ever in the bottom drawer of a desk. If that happens your review has failed. One or two erroneous sentences might discredit the whole review in the eyes of the author and the editor.

7.       Try not to let the author's possibly halting command of the English language influence your impression of the quality of the study itself. This is an important point------language may influence your judgement of the manuscript much more than you think. A large part of the world's scientists have English as a second language. Their message may therefore be difficult to understand.

8.       Be aware that peer review is seldom a fair process. One of your goals should be to try making it fairer. You should neither overrate manuscripts from your own area of expertise nor belittle manuscript from other areas. Never tell an author that he or she should have done the study the way you would have chosen to do it. But sometimes, if the situation is retrievable, it may be helpful to tell authors how to do it.

9.       Effective reviews might actually help you in your own work, by getting you to look with the same critical eye at your own writing.

10.   Do not assume that authors are hiding skeletons in their cupboards, or go out of your way to find suspected major errors behind a smoke-screen of words or statistics. Special attention should be paid to negative results----are they worth publishing in their own right, or are they caused by faulty methods or theory?

11.   Remember that the author often knows the subject, at least slightly, better than you do. Be respectful, or even humble, in your review. Allow for simple mistakes. How is it that you, who can so easily find faults in other peoples' studies, do not see the errors in your own?

12.   If you suggest that the editor should decline the manuscript try to suggest another journal where the readership might be more receptive(a more specialized journal, perhaps, or a local one). Alternatively, suggest that the author should put the results in another context that might be better suited to the journal chosen for first submission.

13.   Do not check whether every citation(reference) is included in the reference list. Authors' accuracy here is notoriously low, and the job is laborious and probably not very productive. If a key reference is omitted or a citation is badly wrong you should of course point this out.

14.   General and sweeping statements should be avoided.(“The manuscript should be accepted/rejected”) Be specific and give reasons for your views.

15.   Keep you review short. Do not digress. Respond rapidly. Read the review through before returning it to the editor.

16.   If necessary you could suggest to the editor how the review process of the journal might be improved.

17.   Remember that editors often choose reviewers from their experience. The scientific community in your field may be large but the number of people chosen as reviewers is much smaller. This places a heavy responsibility on you as a reviewer. If you are also a frequent author in the journal your reviews may influence the editor greatly.

                           From <<Science Editors' Handbook>>