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   Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 2018; 9(1):13-23 

 

 

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Peer Review system: A Golden standard for publications process 

Shamima Parvin Lasker PhD (USA), MPH (USA), EMMB (Europe), MPhil (BD), MSc (BD) 

 
Professor  & Head of Anatomy, MH Samorita Medical College, Dhaka, Bangladesh 

Visiting Professor, Clinical Anatomy, Dentistry, and Bioethics, AUSN, USA. 

Sectary General, Bangladesh Bioethics Society. 

Treasurer, World Association of Medical Editors (WAME)  

Chairperson, Ethics & Publication, Asian Pacific Association of Medical Editors (APAME)  

Senior Vice President, Bangladesh Society for Scholarly Journal Editors (BASE)  

Executive Editor, Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 

 

Abstract: Peer review process helps in evaluating and validating of research that is published in the 

journals. U.S. Office of Research Integrity reported that data fraudulence was found to be involved in 94% 

cases of misconduct from 228 identified articles between 1994–2012. If fraud in published article are 

significantly as high as reported, the question arise in mind, were these articles peer reviewed?  Another 

report said that the reviewers failed to detect 16 cases of fabricated article of Jan Hendrick Schon. 

Superficial peer reviewing process does not reveals suspicion of misconduct. Lack of knowledge of 

systemic review process not only demolish the academic integrity in publication but also loss the trust of 

the people of the institution, the nation, and the world. The aim of this review article is to aware stakeholders 

specially novice reviewers about the peer review system. Beginners will understand how to review an article 

and they can justify better action choices in dealing with reviewing an article. 

Key words: peer review, review system, bioethics, publication ethics  

Introduction: “Peer reviewers are the ‘gate-

keepers’ of science” that helps in evaluation and 

validation of research 1. Editors, academics and 

readers have full trust of peer-review system 2.  

But sometimes their peer reviewing system raise 

question 3. According to report of U.S. Office of 

Research Integrity, fraud articles were found in 

94% cases from 228 published article of 

misconduct over 15 years period 4. Jan Hendrick 

Schon, 31 year-old physicist, while working at 

Bell Laboratory in Murray Hill, New Jersey, 

published duplicated, fabricated and falsified 

article in reputed journal including Science and 

Nature. Careless review process failed to detect 

misconduct of 16 articles of Schon 3. However, a 

survey on 590 editorial board members of 

chemistry journals revealed that 97% of the 

journals were not double-blinded 3. A research 

analyzed the effectiveness of peer review 

process of three journals, namely British Medical 

Journal, Annals of Internal Medicine and The 

Lancet. They found that 946 submitted article 

were rejected among the dataset of 1,008 

submitted manuscripts. Among the rejected 

article 757 manuscripts were resubmitted to 

another journals for publication. These articles 



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were cited extensively over time 5. Peer-reviewed 

journals were not doing their jobs. The poor 

quality of peer review significantly reduces the 

confidence of researchers and clinicians.  

Some said peer reviewers take excessive time 

and delay the publication 3. In spite of criticisms, 

peer review is the most conventional technique 

for quality and validity of individual articles 1. A 

survey of Ware and Monkman proposed that of 

93% believe the peer review is important and 

necessary; 85% believed scientific community 

has been benefited from peer reviewer and 83% 

thought peer review is the only system to control 

of misconduct 6 .  

Editors belief on peer reviewers for fair 

assessments of article. Peer reviewers has 

responsibilities and obligations to review the 

article and identify all the ethical issues raised by 

the research 2 . Academic integrity is essential not 

only for progress within the academy, but also for 

maintaining the trust of the people as a whole. 

Utmost awareness is necessary in peer reviewing 

process especially to the apprentice reviewers. 

Therefore, this review article has been 

undertaken so that novice learner can 

comprehend the whole peer reviewing system 

and they can able to consider the issues need to 

be think off during peer reviewing process. 

Historical Background: The first identified peer 

review process was found in 854–931 B.C. in the 

book of Ishāq ibn ʻAlī al-Ruhāwī entitled “Ethics 

of the Physician”. According to him, physician 

kept notes on patient's condition for every visit. 

When patient “cured or died”, the local medical 

council scrutinized the records of the physician if 

the treatment was consistent with the standards 

of medical care 7,8. The first documented journal 

peer-review was seen in 1665 at Philosophical 

Transactions Journal where an editor requests 

independently experts from his field for his private 

use 1. In 1731, peer review was introduced to 

scholarly publication of medical articles by the 

Royal Society of Edinburgh. All these type of peer 

review were like conference now a day 3. Till mid-

eighteen editor use to act as peer reviewer. In 

1750s, Denis Diderot said “A journal embraces 

such a large variety of matters that it is impossible 

for a single editor to oversee every issue specially 

in mediocre journal” 7. Until World War II, editorial 

process is not shape what we call peer review 

process today 3 . Science, Nature and The 

Journal of the American Medical Association 

started peer reviewing in mid-20th century 8 .  The 

Lancet did not implement peer-reviewers outside 

the journal until 1976 9 . 

Definition:  Peer review is a process of evolution 

in order to publish for scholarly community. Peer 

reviewer is also called referee and articles are 

called "refereed articles". According to WAME “A 

peer-reviewed biomedical journal is one that 

regularly obtains advice on individual 

manuscripts from reviewers who are not part of 

the journal’s editorial staff to intend to improve the 

accuracy, clarity, and completeness of published 

manuscripts and to help editors to decide to 

publish 10. 

Peer review is the “golden standard” for 

evaluating the publications 11. Editors request at 

least two reviewers to evaluate a manuscript. 

Sometimes journals call an additional reviews. 

Additional peer reviewer is needed for cross 



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disciplines, statistical analyses, complex, 

controversy or strong disagreement work for 

thorough evaluation of a paper 12 . 

Types of peer review:  Many types of peer 

reviewing system has been recognized. Each 

model has pros and cons 12 . But it is not clear 

which system is the best 12 . Different disciplines 

use different model of peer review system 

according their benefits and feasibility 2 . Different 

types of peer review system has been shown in 

Table 1. 

Table 1. Different types of peer review system  

 Type  Definition Prons  Cons Reference 

Single blind 

peer review 

Only reviewers 

aware of the 

identities of 

authors. 

Reviewers are not influenced 

by the authors, protecting 

against possible reprisals by 

author. 

Highly subjective, 

Possibility to bias 

review in favor of or 

against the author. 

Delay the review. In 

case of competitor 

may take advantage 

of ideas of article yet 

unpublished.  

CSE, 201212 

Double-blind 

peer review 

Both the 

reviewers and 

authors are not 

aware of each 

other identities.  

Reduce biasness, prevent 

unreasonably critical in case of 

the competitors work. 

e.g. most of the journals 

Delay the review. 

Sometimes 

superficial review of 

an article. 

CSE, 201212 

Open peer 

review 

Both the 

reviewers 

authors are 

aware each 

other identities 

More transparent, rapid and 

better quality of reviews. 

Reviewers comments are 

openly available with 

reviewers name in published 

article. 

Reviewers may be 

less willing to 

review, less critical 

and impartial, if their 

identity is revealed, 

particularly  when 

judging their 

colleagues’ work 

CSE, 201212 



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Transparent 

peer review 

 Similar to open 

peer review. 

Similar advantage Similar 

disadvantage. 

However, the 

reviewer’s names 

are not available in 

the article.  

COPE, 

201713 

Interactive or 

collaborative  

peer review 

Peer review 

usually takes 

place on a 

platform, 

reviewers can 

interact with 

authors or each 

other 

Facilitate the review process. 

Review process occur through 

over phone, Skype etc. 

Can make reprisals 

or reviewers may be 

less critical and 

impartial. 

CSE, 201212 

Multi-stage 

open peer 

review  

Reviewers plus 

other members 

of the scientific 

community can 

openly discuss 

for a 

designated 

period of time 

and openly 

comments.  

The manuscript is then 

revised, edited (re-reviewed if 

needed) and finally published. 

Very rapid publication. 

e.g. Atmospheric Chemistry 

and Physics 

Identity of reviewers’ 

names can make 

hostility or reviewers 

may be less critical 

and impartial. 

Pöschl, 

201214  

Cascading or 

shared peer 

review  

When 

manuscripts 

rejected after 

review, article 

can transfer 

among sister 

journals in the 

same 

publisher. 

No need to reformat and 

further peer review. 

 e.g. SAGE journals: 

Otolaryngology Head and 

Neck Surgery and OTO Open; 

JAMA family of journals; 

Elsavier etc.  

 

 

Rejected article is 

accepted anyhow 

 



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post-

publication 

peer review  

Usually 

anonymous, 

blogs, and 

social media 

comments e.g. 

letters to the 

editor, journal 

online 

comments, 

editorial 

comments, 

third party 

website 

commenting 

such as 

PubMed 

Commons and 

PubPeer.  

Take long time to publish. 

Traditional print-based journals 

generally batch letters to the 

editor and request a response 

from the authors, publishing 

them together in a single issue 

a few months after the original 

article.  

 

Only letters to the 

editor are indexed. 

COPE, 

201713 

Process of peer review:  Peer review is a well-

known professional practice in scholarly 

publication 15. After completion of research, 

article is submitted to a journal. Editors send the 

article to the reviewers in the same field. 

Reviewers provide feedback on the article. 

Authors address the article according to 

reviewer’s comments and submit it for 

publication.  Editor take the final decision whether 

article is accepted or rejected for publication. 

Only the articles based on objectives, well-

structured methodology, logical reasoning and 

argument with evidence etc are accepted for 

publication 16.  

 

What do reviewers do with manuscript? Each 

reviewer assesses the article by asking 

questions. Based on the answers to these 

questions, the reviewers decide whether the 

article is worthy to publication. They then make a 

recommendation to the editor whether article can 

be approved or rejected. Questions are like:  

1. What is this research about?  

2. Is it interesting? 

3. Is it important in existing knowledge?  

4. Does the paper fit the scope of the 

journal? 

5. Is the research question clear? 

6. Is the approach appropriate? 

7. Does it develop novel concepts? 

8. Are the study design, methods and 

analysis appropriate to the research 

question? 

9. Are the methods of statistical analysis 

and level of significance appropriate? 

10. Are the findings original?  



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11. Is the methodology sound?  

12. Are the conclusions logical?  

13. In case of research with human or 

animals, was ethics approval gained? 

14. Is the article duplication publication? 

15. It is plagiarized?  

Role and responsibility of peer reviewer: Peer 

should follow some norms and values to be a 

reviewers. Following are some universally 

accepted responsibilities of reviewers for sound 

peer review outcome 12. 

1. Timeliness and responsiveness:  Provide 

scholarly and unbiased feedback in a 

timely manner. Reviewers should 

promptly decline when they cannot meet 

the deadline.  

2. Competency: Reviewers should be the 

expertise in the field of article. Without 

expertise reviewer may recommend an 

article with considerable insufficiencies 

or reject the worthy paper. In such cases, 

the reviewer should decline to review.  

3. Financial conflict: Reviewer should 

disclose the conflict of interest if any. In 

this case reviewer should decline to 

review.  

4. Impartiality: Reviewer comments and 

recommendation should be based on 

article objectives and scientific merits in 

regard to nation, creed, race, color, 

ethnic origin, sex and religion.  

5. Comply with: Comply with the editor’s 

instructions. Identify if the writing is clear, 

abridged, scientifically accurate, original 

and appropriate to the journal. 

Determining scientific merit, and 

indicating ways to improve it.  

6. Constructive critique: Reviewer should 

assess the manuscript in sympathetic 

and positive way, providing unbiased and 

enlightening critique to the submitted 

work, identifying negative aspects 

constructively and avoiding personal 

comments or criticism.    

7. Ethical approval: Noting any ethical 

violation during research with animal or 

human.  

8. Duplicate publication: Alert editor in case 

of any knowledge of similar  article to 

prevent  duplicate publication  

9. Confidentiality: Reviewer should not 

share or disclose information with third 

parties, from the reviewed paper. 

10. Material handing: Reviewers should not 

keep copies of submitted manuscripts 

and should not use the knowledge of 

their content for any purpose other than 

the peer review and destroy the 

manuscripts after reviewing finish. 

11. Contact to author: Reviewers should 

refraining from direct communication to 

author.  

Reviewer’s misconduct: Peer review does not 

guarantee manuscript quality and does not 

reliably detect scientific misconduct” 10.  

Reviewer misconduct may include 

1. Falsifying the facts in a review 12. 

2. Unnecessary delaying the review 

process; most journals request reviews 

within one to three weeks12. 



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3. Unfairly criticizing on a competitor’s 

work 12. 

4. Proposing changes according to and 

support the reviewer’s own work or 

hypotheses 12. 

5. Use of manuscript content for one’s own 

benefit, plagiarism of manuscript 

content, intellectual property theft during 

peer review 2.  

6. Sharing manuscript content without 

permission,  

7. Not disclose one’s conflict(s) of interest. 

8. The reviewer does not destroy the 

manuscript in paper or electronic form 

after review process. Keep it for later 

use. Use the manuscript or information 

obtained from it for personal gain (be it 

professional, personal, or financial) 17.  

 

Reviewer Selection:  Editor should invite 

reviewers who expertise in the same field of 

article 12. Editors should avoid rude, defamatory 

peer reviewer. Editors should avoid using 

reviewers who provide poor quality reviews 

and/or are very tardy in submitting their reviews 

17. Editors should screen out reviewers for 

potential conflicts of interest. Editors should not 

make reviewers from the same institution, least 

not in the same department of the authors. 

Editors generally should avoid asking reviewers 

to review more than a couple of times per year, 

unless the reviewer has agreed to review more 

often (e.g., as an Editorial Board member) or 

there are unique circumstances the editor 

discusses with the reviewer 10. Editors may select 

peer reviewers according to author’s suggestion 

but not accept the blinding system 2. If editor is 

requested by the author not be used certain 

reviewer, editors should consider the requests if 

justified 10. 

 

Time requires for peer review: “Peer review 

and publication system are time-consuming 

process, frequently involving more than a year 

between submission and publication”2.  

Reviewers should be reminded as the deadline 

draws near and when it is reached or overdue, if 

reviewers do not return reviews in a timely 

fashion and do not respond to reminders, the 

editor should contact another reviewer. The 

author should be informed of the reason for the 

delay. If the manuscript already has two peer 

reviews, the editor should assess the manuscript 

(or ask another editor with the journal who 

specializes in the area to assess it) to determine 

if the existing peer reviews are sufficient to make 

a decision 17. 

Review quality: Peer review process should be 

fair and minimize bias 2. When the editor receives 

the peer reviews, the editor should consider 

whether the reviewers’ comments are 

constructive and whether the reviewer provides 

specific examples from the manuscript to support 

the comments. For example, “This study was 

poorly designed and executed, and such shoddy 

work should not be published,” the reviewer 

should provide specific examples of why the 

study design is not well suited to answer the study 

question and the problems that may result.  

Several types of comments are not appropriate 

for a review. First, the reviewer should not 

address the manuscript’s suitability for 

publication in comments for the author; if the 

journal permits comments for the editor, the 



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reviewer can make recommendations there. The 

decision to publish is the editor’s; the reviewer’s 

role is to evaluate and explain the study’s 

strengths and weaknesses. Second, reviewers 

should not ask authors to preferentially cite their 

work unless the citation is truly justified. Third, 

reviews that are insulting or demeaning with no 

useful comments should not be sent to the 

author. If a review is useful but includes 

comments that are not constructive, the editor 

should modify those comments before sending to 

the author, and share the modified comments 

with the reviewer. 

Editors should thank reviewers when they 

complete their review and, in due course, inform 

reviewers of the manuscript decision and provide 

them with the other reviewers’ comments 17.  

Rewarding Reviewers: Some journals 

published list of reviewers in order to recognize 

the reviewer’s generous volunteer efforts with 

thanks publicly 18. Editors may include them in 

Publons, a free review reporting services18. Some 

journals reward reviewers who have provided 

several high quality reviews by publishing their 

names as distinguished reviewers; star reviewers 

and awarding them a certificate and/or letter 

signed by the editor and journal owner (head of 

the academic institution or professional 

organization 17. Journals may include reviews in 

the continuing medical education credits 12. Other 

incentives include free journal subscriptions, 

complementary access to databases (or for a 

limited time during the review period) and waived 

submission or article processing fees for 

reviewers who submit future research as authors 

17  

Discussion:  

Biasness: Value of the journal is depend on the 

peer review process.  Some cases, especially in 

quantitative research, biasness is discernable as 

the direct violation of impartiality 

underdetermining the criteria of peer review 

system during evaluation process 15. Reviewers 

should not assess the article on the basis of 

“sense of self and relative position” but its rational 

content 19. Sometimes, biasness may be occur 

due to social characteristics of the 

author/reviewer e.g. prestige bias, nationality 

bias and language bias 15. 

Limitation: Sometimes, peer review takes too 

much time and delay publishing substantially. “It’s 

one of the bottle necks of scholarly publishing” 2.  

Sometimes, number of experts in same arena are 

limited to review. Reviewer is not paid as job. 

They are occupied by other academic tasks that 

delay the peer reviewing process 2 .  

Payment: Timothy McTighe, Executive Director 

of JISRF and Editor-in-Chief of Reconstructive 

Review, in his personal letter in the WAME blog 

think that reviewer should not be paid. Reviewer 

cannot pay at the same rate that his job pays him. 

It comes very close to a conflict of interest. If the 

payment is made to expedite the review process 

the reviewer might be tempted to accept the 

submission believing he will get more paid 

request for review. It also clouds the overall merit 

of the quality of content 20. He also argue that if 

there is merit in the journal content there should 

be enough quality experts willing to review 

manuscripts as part of their overall professional 

goals of keeping their standards high in their 

chosen profession 20.  Payment may bring about 



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suspicion and doubt about the peer review 

process 20. Some cases, statistician may be paid 

for their services to review the article, but most 

peer reviewers are not paid because they will 

receive the same service when their manuscripts 

are under review 17.  

 

Review Process: It is believed that the double-

blind review system is better than single-blind as 

it is less biased but there is also doubt whether 

true blinding is really possible 15. As for example, 

Israel is a small country, double blinding process 

is really useless as everyone of scholar society 

knows each other and knows what research is 

going on in which institute 3.  Sometimes authors 

can be easily identifiable by the reviewers 

through their writing style, subject matter and self-

citation 1. A research shown that after masking 

the authors’ identity, of 30% of the authors were 

identified by the reviewer due to self-citation 3.  In 

small research fields this number is higher. 

Double blinding is pointless because the content 

and references could not be truly masked 3.  

However, a report says, most of the people prefer 

still double blinding (56%) than single blinding 

(25%) 6.  

Some consider open review system is the best 

way to prevent plagiarism, malevolent comments 

and stop reviewers from implement their own 

agenda. Others realize it is a less effective 

process, reviewer may withhold or tone down 

criticism in fear of retribution 1 . 

In case of transparent peer review, comments are 

posted on the journal website may appear at any 

time and generally are not indexed. Authors 

should be encouraged to respond to them as 

appropriate. Authors of letters to the editor and 

authors of online comments both should be 

required to disclose their conflicts of interest in 

adherence with the journal's policies and the 

conflicts should be published alongside their 

comments. The journal article should link to the 

journal's related post-publication peer review, 

and vice versa. Journals may wish to link out to 

non-journal post-publication peer review 17. In 

case of cascading, same manuscript need not to 

review again for different journals of parent 

journal. If articles are rejected authors can 

transfer article to another journal of same family 

without reformatting. It save time to author as well 

as editors 1. 

Whatever the mode of peer review process, it 

does not guarantee manuscript quality and does 

not reliably detect scientific misconduct” 10.  

Editorial Support to peer reviewers: Peer 

reviewers should be protected from authors when 

peer reviewer’s identity are revealed. Editor 

should write authors explicitly discouraging to 

contact peer reviewers directly, especially if 

misconduct is suspected 2 . 

 

Authors Appeals:  “Authors have the right to 

appeal editorial decisions”.  Journals should have 

a policy and clearly mention in the journal’s 

instructions that authors can appeal of peer 

reviewer’s decisions. This may be benefitted for 

both authors and editors but editor should careful 

and discourage repeated or groundless appeals 

12.  

 

Publisher: To increase the standard of  peer 

review system, publishers can audit the 



   Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 2018; 9(1):13-23 

 

 

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percentage of accepting and rejecting peer 

reviewed papers annually and asses how 

journal’s reporting standards can be increased. 

Publishers can collaborate with Software 

Company to create a meta-researchers /peer 

reviewer that may help editors to compare the 

peer and review processes 21. Like the plagiarism 

checker, technology may develop a software to 

identify illegitimate declaration of peer review 

journals can be detected 21. Publishers should 

undertake to develop review metrics (e.g., 

number, role of reviewers and review 

commentary) along with journal metadata to 

increase the quality and legitimacy review system 

of article  21. 

Conclusion: Peer review system was deployed 

date back 7th century, in medical profession to 

scrutinize treatment was consistent with the 

standards of medical care. Until World War II, 

peer review process is not shape like today. The 

peer review is the key process to evaluate and 

validate the research that increase the overall 

quality of the journal.. Superficial and poor quality 

peer reviewing process does not identify the 

misconduct and ethical issues raised by the 

research. Peer review system is the gold 

standard to review an article. There is no system 

develop above peer review process for academic 

integrity. Lack of systemic knowledge of review 

process abolish the academic integrity in 

publication and trust of the academics and 

readers. I belief this document will make aware 

the stakeholders about the peer review process.  

 

 

Reference:  

1. Elsevier 2016. What is peer review? 

https://www.elsevier.com/reviewers/what-is-peer-

review (Accessed on Feb 2017). 

 2. Chris, G., Elizabeth, W., Alyson, B., Suzan, F., 

Diane, Andrew, R. Best Practice Guidelines on 

Publication Ethics: a Publisher’s Perspective Journal 

compilation. J Clin Pract. 2007; 61(Suppl.152): 1-26. 

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4. Steen RG, Casadevall A, Fang FC. Why Has the 

Number of Scientific Retractions Increased? Plos One 

2013; 8 (7): 1-9.  

5. Silera K, Leeb K. & Beroc L. Measuring the 
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6. Ware, M. & Monkman, M. Peer review in scholarly 
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peer reviews? COPE Council, 2017. Retrieved from: 

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iews_discussion_document.pdf?platform=hootsuite 

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17. Lapeña Jr JF and Winker M. 2017 Peer Review, 

Manuscript Decisions, and Author Correspondence. 

WAME eLearning Program. (In Press). 

18. Van Noorden, R. The Scientists Who Get Credit 
for Peer Review. Nature. 2014. Q &A. 
https://www.nature.com/news/the-scientists-who-get-
credit-for-peer-review-1.16102  (Access Feb 2017). 

19. Beatriz B, Ricardo C, Konrad, Martin T. Bias in 
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20. McTighe T. JISRF and Editor-in-Chief. 
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256-257.  

 

Author’s contribution: Author conceived the 

idea, perceived the knowledge, and drafted the 

manuscript.  

 

Conflict of interest: None 

 

 


