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Scholarly Communication: Peer Review

This guide defines Scholarly Communication, and its role in raising visibility of Researcher output and web presence. Scholarly Communication is defined as "the system through which research and other scholarly writings are created, evaluated for quality,

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What is Peer Review?

Peer review is the system used to assess the quality of a manuscript before it is published. Independent researchers in the relevant research area assess submitted manuscripts for originality, validity and significance to help editors determine whether a manuscript should be published in their journal.(Source: Biomed Central)

The peer review system exists to validate academic work, helps to improve the quality of published research, and increases networking possibilities within research communities. Despite criticisms, peer review is still the only widely accepted method for research validation and has continued successfully with relatively minor changes for some 350 years. (Source: Elsevier)

Track more of your research impact

Publons: Your publications, citation metrics, peer reviews 
and journal editing work, in one place.

Use Publons to track your publications, citation metrics, peer reviews, and journal editing work in a single, easy-to-maintain profile.

  • All your publications, instantly imported from Web of Science, ORCID, or your bibliographic reference manager (e.g. EndNote or Mendeley).

  • Trusted citation metrics, automatically imported from the Web of Science Core Collection.

  • Correct author attribution, with your unique ResearcherID automatically added to the publications you claim in Web of Science collections.

  • Your verified peer review and journal editing history, powered by partnerships with thousands of scholarly journals.

Downloadable record summarising your scholarly impact as an author, editor and peer reviewer.

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Understanding Peer Review

The peer review process starts once you have submitted your paper to a journal. 

After submission, your paper will be sent for assessment by independent experts in your field. The reviewers (who also known as referees) are asked to judge the validity, significance, and originality of your work. Below we expand on what is peer review is, and how the peer review works. It is important to fully understand the process, as it will help you know how to make sure that every article you publish, is as good as it can be.

Reviewer Hub

Peer review – and reviewers – are at the heart of the academic publishing process. 

Find out why reviewers perform this vital role, how they are recognised and how you can volunteer to review yourself.