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What to look for when reviewing

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Now that you’ve received and accepted a review invitation, it’s time to actually get down to assessing the manuscript. This is likely to be a pretty daunting experience the first few times that you do it – don’t worry though, it gets easier. One way to make it easier is to have some points that you’re specifically considering when you read through the manuscript. This can help you to focus on what the manuscript’s strong points are and where it can be improved. Some journals will have templates or forms for you to complete that will help with this, too.

Before diving into these points, it’s helpful to read through the manuscript once as you would if you were reading a published article in a journal. After this, you’ll know where the author is taking their argument and be in a better place to comment on their work throughout. An initial read-through will help you to avoid making notes on things that could be done/improved only to cross them out as you read through the paper.

Jump straight to:

Soundness of the argument

When assessing a manuscript, it’s helpful to start by asking yourself: ‘did the authors make a good argument?’ Another way to look at this is to ask whether they drew a valid conclusion from the evidence that they presented. Try to analyse how simple it is to follow the logical flow of the manuscript and consider whether the authors have made any assumptions that need to be spelled out. Are there any sections that left you confused – either because of their placement within the manuscript, because they didn’t seem to fit with the point the author was making, or because they were too brief and need more depth?

It’s important not to confuse this question with one about whether you agree with their argument (and it can often be difficult to separate the two). You need to try to consider the manuscript as objectively as you can.

Academic rigour and quality

This is the point at which you begin to assess the manuscript in a wider context. When you’re thinking about the academic rigour and quality, you’re looking at how well the authors have drawn on previous work to build their arguments. Do the references that they have made sufficiently lay the groundwork for the points that they’re making? Are there any articles or books that should have been cited or that could help to improve the work? Are there any citations that aren’t really adding anything to the manuscript (maybe they’re taking the manuscript off on an unnecessary tangent, for example) that could be removed?

Essentially, at this stage, you’re trying to determine how well the authors have engaged with the researchers who have come before them.

Contribution to the field

Following on from the author’s engagement with the existing work in the field, you should consider how their manuscript helps to move the field forward. This is where your expertise is vital to the editors and can be incredibly helpful for the authors. Trust your knowledge and your assessments – the editor invited you to review this paper because they trust you!

When thinking about how a manuscript contributes to the field, it can be helpful to think about whether the authors are:

  • Answering or addressing outstanding questions in the field
  • Presenting a new argument or presenting an existing argument in a new way
  • Providing a platform that others will be able to build on to create new work
  • Presenting, developing or considering new information, data or research

While a lot of writing a review will involve highlighting shortcomings or areas for improvement, this is one of the best opportunities to highlight the positive aspects of the paper to the editors. If you think that a manuscript has the potential to move the field forward or be a key article for other researchers, make sure to say so and explain why.

Appropriateness for the journal

The editors will give consideration to whether a manuscript is appropriate for their journal and, if you’re not particularly familiar with the journal, you can ignore this section. If you have a good understanding of the journal, it can be helpful to note how/if you think this manuscript will fit with their recent publications.

Quality of writing

As a reviewer, it’s not your job to point out spelling or grammatical errors (although it’s helpful to the authors when you do), so don’t worry about trying to note every misplaced comma. If you find that the quality of the writing is poor enough that it makes the manuscript difficult to understand though, you should note it. This can be in the confidential comments to the editor or the notes to the author and doesn’t need to include loads of detail. Mentioning that the writing wasn’t very clear and maybe highlighting a couple of examples of confusing sentences or paragraphs should be enough.

Editor questions

This is an area that won’t come up in every review that you do, but sometimes editors will ask specific questions. It may be that they have concerns about a manuscript that is on the edge of their personal areas of expertise and want to make sure that they get some feedback on them. Or possibly they have a reviewer with expertise in one area of the paper already and want to make sure that you’re focusing on another. It’s always useful to check the emails you received from the journal to see if there are things that the editor would like you to specifically consider in your review.

Overall impressions

Finally, you should think about any overall impressions of the manuscript. The sections above should give you a decent idea of how good the paper is and which areas need to be improved. If the paper is accepted for publication though, most readers won’t go through it in as much detail as you have – they’ll just be left with the overall sense of whether or not it’s a good paper. Your opinion on this can be really helpful to the editors in thinking about how the manuscript may be received by the readers of their journal.

Where to now?

What to look for when reviewing | Edinburgh University Press