Only 2% of Peer Reviews Are Actually Read

Why Use More Than One Peer Reviewer?

It is a common assumption that papers will be reviewed by 2 reviewers before a determination is made. In fact, that is the average for almost Wiley journals, not least considering that is the default setting for the electronic editorial office systems we use. But there is no dominion that says this should exist the case. Information technology is editors, not reviewers, who brand decisions on papers. Reviewers provide expert opinions to help inform editors' decisions. There is no obligation on editors to consult a specific number of reviewers before making a decision. Editors need the liberty to desk pass up papers without external review or to consult additional reviewers if they require further guidance. So why are the majority of papers sent to 2 reviewers? Here are five reasons why it is a adept idea to send papers to more than one reviewer:

1. Two Heads Are Ameliorate Than 1 – Reviewing a manuscript is not the aforementioned every bit mark an examination paper. Manuscripts should be reporting original enquiry - there is no answers sail to check whether the authors got the "correct answer". Research is an iterative process and the inquiry presented in recent articles may exist falsified or superseded past later research. In any instance, the reviewers were not present when the research was conducted, so volition never be able to appraise whether the reported results are correct. What reviewers can practise is estimate whether the research methodology is sound, whether the results take been analyzed in an appropriate way, and whether the results have been presented intelligibly. Inevitably 2 reviewers are going to have a better take chances of picking upwardly whatever errors than but one.
2. Reducing Subjectivity – While presenting the results of scientific enquiry is an objective exercise, the estimation of those results inevitably introduces subjectivity. Most scientific papers include a discussion department, where the authors will write about the implications of their research. These opinions are legitimate, and often the most readable function of the commodity, but risk spinning the results in unjustified ways. The issue of subjectivity is greater in non-scientific disciplines where a larger office of the enquiry is interpretation. Once again, manufactures are not invalid simply because they are written from a particular perspective. However, having several people involved in assessing research introduces some measure out of objectivity. The more reviewers, the greater the hazard of avoiding over-stating significance.
3. Reducing the Risk of Bias – Reviewers are human and open up to all the fallibilities of humanity, including conscious and unconscious bias. At that place is adept evidence from various fields of human behavior that people can be susceptible to bias based on problems including age, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and prestige. These forms of bias have no place in scientific and scholarly research – enquiry should be judged on its ain merits, not on who conducted it. 1 way to reduce the take chances of bias, conscious or otherwise, is to have more than one reviewer.
4. Reducing the Run a risk of Fraud – Unfortunately, there are many documented cases of individuals trying to dispense the review process to their own advantage. One mutual example of this is the use of fake reviewers, where authors will recommend reviewers and give contact details for dummy accounts that they have access to, in the hopes that they can review their own paper. Some other example is where a reviewer will intentionally try to go a paper rejected because information technology competes with his/her own enquiry. There are other examples. One mode to reduce the run a risk of such manipulation of the review process is to consult more than than i reviewer from as diverse a pool of reviewers as possible.
5. Maintaining the Perceived Integrity of Peer Review – In an historic period of "imitation news" and "alternative facts", robust and rigorous peer review has never been more than of import. The scientific and scholarly literature needs to stand up higher up the morass of internet comment. To do that it must be seen to be maintaining a high standard of pre-publication assessment. Peer review not simply picks upward errors and improves the quality of the presentation, just it likewise provides a hallmark of quality for the published article. When peer review is compromised, or lacks rigor, it not only risks introducing errors into published articles, information technology likewise tarnishes the perceived integrity of peer review. One role of that perceived integrity is that articles are sent for external review before publication and that external review is objective and free from bias. Consulting more than one reviewer for each article is one way to maintain that standard.

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Source: https://www.wiley.com/network/researchers/submission-and-navigating-peer-review/why-use-more-than-one-peer-reviewer

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