In honor of Peer Review Week (September 19–26; https://peerreviewweek.wordpress.com), I want to take a moment to thank our reviewers and to recognize the hours you spend volunteering your time to make sure that the science published in JNeurosci is rigorous, accurate and moves the neuroscience field forward.
I have had colleagues complain that peer review lengthens the time it takes to get scientific findings into print or increases the number of unnecessary control experiments requested, but that has not been my experience. For my own work, rigorous review has ensured that I could make the case for an interpretation of data that is reasonable, even for those who have not puzzled through the initial process of experimental design. More important, requests to rule out confounds by performing a neglected control has on occasion saved me from making an erroneous conclusion. Peer review is the original scientific crowd sourcing — the collective wisdom of reviewers is a valuable resource.
From the editorial standpoint, peer review is even more valuable. Editors handle manuscripts in their general area of research, but even the broadest background is not sufficient to cover the details of every manuscript submitted. Reviewers with expertise closer to the experiments presented can catch methodological concerns that even a careful editor who has not worked in the area would miss. Deep knowledge of a field can also identify justification for unexpected findings from literature that would be unknown to a non-specialist. Finally, a good reviewer can make the case for the scientific importance of a finding that may not be obvious to the editor and ensure that a novel and exciting finding makes it into print.
I am also grateful to reviewers who spot potential problems with submitted data before they reach print. Our reviewers have identified errors in statistical analysis that preclude good experimental design, figures duplicated from previously published work, and images that were altered in ways that do not conform to journal Guidelines for Responsible Conduct Regarding Scientific Communication. Issues of this kind are referred to the editors for investigation and prevent publication of potentially misleading articles.
We recognize our reviewers by highlighting their names in the 1st issue published every year (Reviewer Recognition). In addition, new Associate Editors are chosen for the JNeurosci Editorial Board each year based on the number, timeliness, and quality of reviews in the previous year. Our most frequent reviewers volunteer many hours of their time ensuring that the papers published in JNeurosci are accurate and useful.
So, thank you to all of you for contributing your knowledge and experience to The Journal of Neuroscience. We value your contributions and look forward to working with you.
Please send us suggestions for how we might improve the peer review process in the future at JN_EIC{at}SFN.ORG or tweet your suggestions to @marinaP63.
