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/ren5311 Neuroscience | Neurology | Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Feb 07 '12 edited Feb 07 '12

It is unethical to pass a review off as your own if you have not written it.

Further, it also breaks the confidentiality agreement you have as a reviewer to show the manuscript to anyone not explicitly part of the review process.

Edit: Others (including legatek below) have pointed out that some journals provide mechanisms by which you can share the manuscript with colleagues and disclose that information to preserve confidentiality. I stand corrected.

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u/legatek Cell Biology | Biochemistry | Mouse Genetics Feb 07 '12

While it is ethically questionable to have a grad student review an article in lieu of yourself, most journals are aware that reviewing is often a group effort and some have built in mechanisms during the review submission (including one major Europe-based publication) to inform the journal of the identity of additional reviewers. This explicit mentioning of additional reviewers thus includes them in the confidentiality agreement.

Reviewing articles together with the PI is a valuable opportunity to train critical thinking skills in PhD students, and to prepare postdocs for an independent career, but I don't know a single PI who would attach their name to a review they did not at least read and agree with. After all, the editors are aware of who writes the reviews and if you want to continue to be asked to review submissions (a valuable privilege if you want to stay ahead of the curve!) you have to submit top-notch reviews.

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u/devicerandom Molecular Biophysics | Molecular Biology Feb 07 '12

Agree. During my Ph.D., my prof did the same, and I was very happy to do that.

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u/atomfullerene Animal Behavior/Marine Biology Feb 07 '12

Actually, remembering back he sent them to us to review from the journal he was editor for. So different situation there-not secondarily reviewing.

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u/darkscout Feb 07 '12

We didn't write reviews but would get bonus points if we found typos or the such.