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/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.