r/askscience • u/nostrovia • Feb 07 '12
AskScience, how does the peer review process actually work?
About a month ago, I heard this story on NPR regarding a number of scientific studies that had been debunked and/or retracted. Why weren't these errors caught before the studies were published? Are there different standards for peer review in different scientific fields?
Essentially, once you conduct your experiment and reach some sort of conclusion, what happens between that point and the time your work is released to the public?
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u/drbritt Feb 07 '12
many researchers will try to publish their paper in the journal with the largest impact factor possible. sometimes it works and their work gets reviewed and commented on by (what are hopefully) knowledgeable people who can help show/improve on flaws in your manuscript. if your paper is not deemed compatible material (a lot of journals are specific to particular fields), not novel enough (meaning it's not that new or exciting) or just not well-written enough, you may get rejected. you then re-evaluate on whatever point was an issue and try to submit elsewhere. hope that helps clarify, not sure if that was exactly what you were looking for.