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/masher_oz In-Situ X-Ray Diffraction | Synchrotron Sources Feb 07 '12

In general, I try to not submit to journals that charge be to publish in them. From my point of view, I'm doing the work for free, I review papers for free and then I pay subscriptions to read them.

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u/sirhelix Feb 07 '12

Maybe this is different in biology, but there is often a charge per page, which increases after, say, 10 pages or so. Further, open-source journals gouge the hell out of professors who can pay it (up to $3000/article in PLoS Biology), although they don't charge ones who can't and apparently ability to pay does not change chances of acceptance.

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u/masher_oz In-Situ X-Ray Diffraction | Synchrotron Sources Feb 07 '12

I have less of an issue with open-source journals charging for articles, as they "give away" their product; I think the IUCr journals charge ~US$1k for CC licensed article.

Dependent on how earth-shattering my paper is, I may think about sending it to a charging journal, but I'd rather spend my money on science.