What is Peer Review and it's Importance

Everybody may hear the phrase "peer review" as giving credence to research and scholarly papers, but  How does it work? What does it mean? Peer review is considered as one of the gold science standards. It's a process with which scientists ("peers") evaluate the standard of other scientists' work. By doing this, they aim to make sure the job is very rigorous, uses past research, coherent, and includes what knew already about it. Most conferences, scientific journals, and grant applications have some referee system.

In most cases, it is a "double-blind" referee. It suggests evaluators don't know the authors, and therefore the authors don't know the identity of the evaluators. The intention behind this technique is to make positive evaluation is not biased.

The referee process for journals involves three stages at least.

1. The Desk Evaluation Stage

When people submit a paper to a journal. It receives an initial evaluation by the chief editor or an associate editor with relevant expertise. At this stage, either can "desk reject" the paper: that's, reject the paper without sending it to blind referees. Generally, articles are desk rejected if the paper does not fit the scope of that journal. Or there may be a fundamental flaw that makes it unfit for publication. In this case, the rejecting editors might write a letter summarizing his or her concerns.

2. The Blind Review 

 If the editorial team judges there are not any fundamental flaws, they send it for review to blind referees. The amount of reviewers depends on the field: in finance, there could be just one reviewer, while journals in other fields of social sciences might ask up to four reviewers. Those reviewers are selected by the editor on the idea of their expert knowledge and their absence of a link with the authors. Reviewers will decide whether to reject the paper, to accept it because it is (which rarely happens) or to invite the paper to be revised. This suggests the author must change the paper in line with the reviewers' concerns. Usually, the reviews affect the validity and rigour of the empirical method, and therefore the importance and originality of the findings (what is named the "contribution" to the prevailing literature). The editor collects those comments, weights them, takes a choice, and writes a letter summarizing the reviewers' and his or her concerns.

It can, therefore, happen that despite hostility on the part of the reviewers, the editor could offer the paper a subsequent round of revision. Within the best journals within the social sciences, 10% to 20% of the papers are offered a "revise-and-resubmit" after the primary round.

3. The Revisions – If  Lucky Enough

If the paper has not been rejected after this first round of review. Then it's sent back to the authors for a revision. The method is repeated as repeatedly as necessary for the editor to succeed in a consensus point on whether to accept or reject the paper. In some cases, this will last for several years. Ultimately, but 10% of the submitted papers are accepted within the best journals within the social sciences. The renowned journal Nature publishes around 7% of the submitted papers. Therefore, it can happen that despite hostility on the part of those reviewers. Within the best journals, within the social sciences, 10%-20% of the papers are delivered a "revise-and-resubmit" after the first series.

Why is peer review important

Peer review acts as feedback which helps the students to edit and recorrect their paper so that they can improve the quality of the paper before submitting it to the University. This is an important process as it gives the students a chance to go through their paper before submitting it. The main purpose of peer review is to make sure that the paper is submitted without any grammatical errors. Here are the few reasons why peer review is important.

• Peer review helps the students to learn at their level of learning from their classmate. The professor should allow the students to learn more independently rather than helping them. The students should be allowed to discover their knowledge and skills, which will be very powerful for them in future. Because of the peer review, students learn from one another and help them to think carefully about their work.
• To take up the criticism at a young age is essential. To build up this quality, peer review is essential so that the students can work effectively in future.
• Peer review helps the students to strengthen their work. Peer review helps the students to clarify their idea by discussing the topic with the classmate. Students can raise the question if they have any, and clarify from each other. As a result, students can improve the quality of their writing.
• Students can learn more by identifying and anticipating their mistakes. Thus, peer review enables the students to think more flexibly about their writing.
• Peer review acts as a medium between the students and the readers. The peer feedback helps the students to explain the importance of their research to the readers who are not experts in the field of the students.
• Lastly, the peer review erases common level writing mistakes and eliminates last-minute drafting.

It is essential to make students understand that peer review is not only course requirement; it is also an important part of the writing procedures that are followed by the successful writers at certain point of time. Peer review is an integral part of writing effective content in their field. Peer feedback helps the students to structure their paper efficiently and score better marks in their paper.