Transparency in peer review: Exploring the content and tone of reviewers' confidential comments to editors
Recent calls to improve transparency in peer review have prompted examination of many aspects of the peer-review process. Peer-review systems often allow confidential comments to editors that could reduce transparency to authors, yet this option has escaped scrutiny. Our study explores 1) how review...
Gespeichert in:
| Veröffentlicht in: | PloS one 2021-11, Vol.16 (11), p.e0260558-e0260558 |
|---|---|
| Hauptverfasser: | , , , , |
| Format: | Artikel |
| Sprache: | eng |
| Schlagworte: | |
| Online-Zugang: | Volltext |
| Tags: |
Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
|
| container_end_page | e0260558 |
|---|---|
| container_issue | 11 |
| container_start_page | e0260558 |
| container_title | PloS one |
| container_volume | 16 |
| creator | O'Brien, Bridget C Artino, Jr, Anthony R Costello, Joseph A Driessen, Erik Maggio, Lauren A |
| description | Recent calls to improve transparency in peer review have prompted examination of many aspects of the peer-review process. Peer-review systems often allow confidential comments to editors that could reduce transparency to authors, yet this option has escaped scrutiny. Our study explores 1) how reviewers use the confidential comments section and 2) alignment between comments to the editor and comments to authors with respect to content and tone.
Our dataset included 358 reviews of 168 manuscripts submitted between January 1, 2019 and August 24, 2020 to a health professions education journal with a single blind review process. We first identified reviews containing comments to the editor. Then, for the reviews with comments, we used procedures consistent with conventional and directed qualitative content analysis to develop a coding scheme and code comments for content, tone, and section of the manuscript. For reviews in which the reviewer recommended "reject," we coded for alignment between reviewers' comments to the editor and to authors. We report descriptive statistics.
49% of reviews contained comments to the editor (n = 176). Most of these comments summarized the reviewers' impression of the article (85%), which included explicit reference to their recommended decision (44%) and suitability for the journal (10%). The majority of comments addressed argument quality (56%) or research design/methods/data (51%). The tone of comments tended to be critical (40%) or constructive (34%). For the 86 reviews recommending "reject," the majority of comments to the editor contained content that also appeared in comments to the authors (80%); additional content tended to be irrelevant to the manuscript. Tone frequently aligned (91%).
Findings indicate variability in how reviewers use the confidential comments to editor section in online peer-review systems, though generally the way they use them suggests integrity and transparency to authors. |
| doi_str_mv | 10.1371/journal.pone.0260558 |
| format | Article |
| fullrecord | <record><control><sourceid>gale_plos_</sourceid><recordid>TN_cdi_plos_journals_2604483240</recordid><sourceformat>XML</sourceformat><sourcesystem>PC</sourcesystem><galeid>A684187205</galeid><doaj_id>oai_doaj_org_article_7d0cdbbf30f849429d6339b9f16aabb7</doaj_id><sourcerecordid>A684187205</sourcerecordid><originalsourceid>FETCH-LOGICAL-c692t-f2fdf21e6d9a2d5d5958d36068b57a8c08f6fefe1fabe8f57ebac0a46684b16a3</originalsourceid><addsrcrecordid>eNqNk1tv0zAUxyMEYqPwDRBEQuLy0OLYjuPwgDRNAypNmgSDV8uJj1tXiV1sZ2zfHnfNpgbtAfnBt9_5n4t9suxlgRYFqYqPGzd4K7vF1llYIMxQWfJH2XFREzxnGJHHB-uj7FkIG4RKwhl7mh0RyikpGT3ONpde2rCVHmx7kxubbwF87uHKwJ9P-dn1tnPe2FUe15C3zkawMZdW5TF5zZ0eSfDh3e5aG5UAI7u06fu0DAnMQZnofHiePdGyC_BinGfZzy9nl6ff5ucXX5enJ-fzltU4zjXWSuMCmKolVqUq65IrwhDjTVlJ3iKumQYNhZYNcF1W0MgWScoYp03BJJllr_e6KfYgxjIFkSpEKSeYokQs94RyciO23vTS3wgnjbg9cH4lpI-m7UBUCrWqaTRBmtOa4loxQuqm1smTbJoqaX0evQ1ND6pNSXvZTUSnN9asxcpdCc5wnWJKAu9HAe9-DxCi6E1ooeukBTfs4-aEcFok9M0_6MPZjdRKpgSM1S75bXei4iTVqOAVTh9hli0eoNJQ0Jv0lKBNOp8YfJgY3P6G67iSQwhi-eP7_7MXv6bs2wN2DbKL6-C6IRpnwxSke7D1LgQP-r7IBRK7lrirhti1hBhbIpm9Onyge6O7HiB_AT8oCKI</addsrcrecordid><sourcetype>Open Website</sourcetype><iscdi>true</iscdi><recordtype>article</recordtype><pqid>2604483240</pqid></control><display><type>article</type><title>Transparency in peer review: Exploring the content and tone of reviewers' confidential comments to editors</title><source>Public Library of Science (PLoS) Journals Open Access</source><source>MEDLINE</source><source>TestCollectionTL3OpenAccess</source><source>EZB-FREE-00999 freely available EZB journals</source><source>PubMed Central</source><source>Free Full-Text Journals in Chemistry</source><creator>O'Brien, Bridget C ; Artino, Jr, Anthony R ; Costello, Joseph A ; Driessen, Erik ; Maggio, Lauren A</creator><contributor>Baccini, Alberto</contributor><creatorcontrib>O'Brien, Bridget C ; Artino, Jr, Anthony R ; Costello, Joseph A ; Driessen, Erik ; Maggio, Lauren A ; Baccini, Alberto</creatorcontrib><description>Recent calls to improve transparency in peer review have prompted examination of many aspects of the peer-review process. Peer-review systems often allow confidential comments to editors that could reduce transparency to authors, yet this option has escaped scrutiny. Our study explores 1) how reviewers use the confidential comments section and 2) alignment between comments to the editor and comments to authors with respect to content and tone.
Our dataset included 358 reviews of 168 manuscripts submitted between January 1, 2019 and August 24, 2020 to a health professions education journal with a single blind review process. We first identified reviews containing comments to the editor. Then, for the reviews with comments, we used procedures consistent with conventional and directed qualitative content analysis to develop a coding scheme and code comments for content, tone, and section of the manuscript. For reviews in which the reviewer recommended "reject," we coded for alignment between reviewers' comments to the editor and to authors. We report descriptive statistics.
49% of reviews contained comments to the editor (n = 176). Most of these comments summarized the reviewers' impression of the article (85%), which included explicit reference to their recommended decision (44%) and suitability for the journal (10%). The majority of comments addressed argument quality (56%) or research design/methods/data (51%). The tone of comments tended to be critical (40%) or constructive (34%). For the 86 reviews recommending "reject," the majority of comments to the editor contained content that also appeared in comments to the authors (80%); additional content tended to be irrelevant to the manuscript. Tone frequently aligned (91%).
Findings indicate variability in how reviewers use the confidential comments to editor section in online peer-review systems, though generally the way they use them suggests integrity and transparency to authors.</description><identifier>ISSN: 1932-6203</identifier><identifier>EISSN: 1932-6203</identifier><identifier>DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0260558</identifier><identifier>PMID: 34843564</identifier><language>eng</language><publisher>United States: Public Library of Science</publisher><subject>Accountability ; Alignment ; Biology and Life Sciences ; Content analysis ; Editorial Policies ; Editors ; Ethics ; Feedback ; Health sciences ; Humans ; Medical education ; Medical publishing ; Medical research ; Medicine ; Medicine and Health Sciences ; Medicine, Experimental ; Peer review ; Peer Review - methods ; Peer Review, Research ; Periodicals as Topic ; Physical Sciences ; Qualitative analysis ; Research and Analysis Methods ; Research design ; Reviews ; Revisions ; Scholarly publishing ; Science Policy ; Social Sciences ; Statistical analysis ; Transparency</subject><ispartof>PloS one, 2021-11, Vol.16 (11), p.e0260558-e0260558</ispartof><rights>COPYRIGHT 2021 Public Library of Science</rights><rights>This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.</rights><lds50>peer_reviewed</lds50><oa>free_for_read</oa><woscitedreferencessubscribed>false</woscitedreferencessubscribed><citedby>FETCH-LOGICAL-c692t-f2fdf21e6d9a2d5d5958d36068b57a8c08f6fefe1fabe8f57ebac0a46684b16a3</citedby><cites>FETCH-LOGICAL-c692t-f2fdf21e6d9a2d5d5958d36068b57a8c08f6fefe1fabe8f57ebac0a46684b16a3</cites><orcidid>0000-0001-9591-5243 ; 0000-0003-2661-7853</orcidid></display><links><openurl>$$Topenurl_article</openurl><openurlfulltext>$$Topenurlfull_article</openurlfulltext><thumbnail>$$Tsyndetics_thumb_exl</thumbnail><linktopdf>$$Uhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8629260/pdf/$$EPDF$$P50$$Gpubmedcentral$$Hfree_for_read</linktopdf><linktohtml>$$Uhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8629260/$$EHTML$$P50$$Gpubmedcentral$$Hfree_for_read</linktohtml><link.rule.ids>230,314,723,776,780,860,881,2096,2915,23847,27903,27904,53769,53771,79346,79347</link.rule.ids><backlink>$$Uhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34843564$$D View this record in MEDLINE/PubMed$$Hfree_for_read</backlink></links><search><contributor>Baccini, Alberto</contributor><creatorcontrib>O'Brien, Bridget C</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Artino, Jr, Anthony R</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Costello, Joseph A</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Driessen, Erik</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Maggio, Lauren A</creatorcontrib><title>Transparency in peer review: Exploring the content and tone of reviewers' confidential comments to editors</title><title>PloS one</title><addtitle>PLoS One</addtitle><description>Recent calls to improve transparency in peer review have prompted examination of many aspects of the peer-review process. Peer-review systems often allow confidential comments to editors that could reduce transparency to authors, yet this option has escaped scrutiny. Our study explores 1) how reviewers use the confidential comments section and 2) alignment between comments to the editor and comments to authors with respect to content and tone.
Our dataset included 358 reviews of 168 manuscripts submitted between January 1, 2019 and August 24, 2020 to a health professions education journal with a single blind review process. We first identified reviews containing comments to the editor. Then, for the reviews with comments, we used procedures consistent with conventional and directed qualitative content analysis to develop a coding scheme and code comments for content, tone, and section of the manuscript. For reviews in which the reviewer recommended "reject," we coded for alignment between reviewers' comments to the editor and to authors. We report descriptive statistics.
49% of reviews contained comments to the editor (n = 176). Most of these comments summarized the reviewers' impression of the article (85%), which included explicit reference to their recommended decision (44%) and suitability for the journal (10%). The majority of comments addressed argument quality (56%) or research design/methods/data (51%). The tone of comments tended to be critical (40%) or constructive (34%). For the 86 reviews recommending "reject," the majority of comments to the editor contained content that also appeared in comments to the authors (80%); additional content tended to be irrelevant to the manuscript. Tone frequently aligned (91%).
Findings indicate variability in how reviewers use the confidential comments to editor section in online peer-review systems, though generally the way they use them suggests integrity and transparency to authors.</description><subject>Accountability</subject><subject>Alignment</subject><subject>Biology and Life Sciences</subject><subject>Content analysis</subject><subject>Editorial Policies</subject><subject>Editors</subject><subject>Ethics</subject><subject>Feedback</subject><subject>Health sciences</subject><subject>Humans</subject><subject>Medical education</subject><subject>Medical publishing</subject><subject>Medical research</subject><subject>Medicine</subject><subject>Medicine and Health Sciences</subject><subject>Medicine, Experimental</subject><subject>Peer review</subject><subject>Peer Review - methods</subject><subject>Peer Review, Research</subject><subject>Periodicals as Topic</subject><subject>Physical Sciences</subject><subject>Qualitative analysis</subject><subject>Research and Analysis Methods</subject><subject>Research design</subject><subject>Reviews</subject><subject>Revisions</subject><subject>Scholarly publishing</subject><subject>Science Policy</subject><subject>Social Sciences</subject><subject>Statistical analysis</subject><subject>Transparency</subject><issn>1932-6203</issn><issn>1932-6203</issn><fulltext>true</fulltext><rsrctype>article</rsrctype><creationdate>2021</creationdate><recordtype>article</recordtype><sourceid>EIF</sourceid><sourceid>BENPR</sourceid><sourceid>DOA</sourceid><recordid>eNqNk1tv0zAUxyMEYqPwDRBEQuLy0OLYjuPwgDRNAypNmgSDV8uJj1tXiV1sZ2zfHnfNpgbtAfnBt9_5n4t9suxlgRYFqYqPGzd4K7vF1llYIMxQWfJH2XFREzxnGJHHB-uj7FkIG4RKwhl7mh0RyikpGT3ONpde2rCVHmx7kxubbwF87uHKwJ9P-dn1tnPe2FUe15C3zkawMZdW5TF5zZ0eSfDh3e5aG5UAI7u06fu0DAnMQZnofHiePdGyC_BinGfZzy9nl6ff5ucXX5enJ-fzltU4zjXWSuMCmKolVqUq65IrwhDjTVlJ3iKumQYNhZYNcF1W0MgWScoYp03BJJllr_e6KfYgxjIFkSpEKSeYokQs94RyciO23vTS3wgnjbg9cH4lpI-m7UBUCrWqaTRBmtOa4loxQuqm1smTbJoqaX0evQ1ND6pNSXvZTUSnN9asxcpdCc5wnWJKAu9HAe9-DxCi6E1ooeukBTfs4-aEcFok9M0_6MPZjdRKpgSM1S75bXei4iTVqOAVTh9hli0eoNJQ0Jv0lKBNOp8YfJgY3P6G67iSQwhi-eP7_7MXv6bs2wN2DbKL6-C6IRpnwxSke7D1LgQP-r7IBRK7lrirhti1hBhbIpm9Onyge6O7HiB_AT8oCKI</recordid><startdate>20211129</startdate><enddate>20211129</enddate><creator>O'Brien, Bridget C</creator><creator>Artino, Jr, Anthony R</creator><creator>Costello, Joseph A</creator><creator>Driessen, Erik</creator><creator>Maggio, Lauren A</creator><general>Public Library of Science</general><general>Public Library of Science (PLoS)</general><scope>CGR</scope><scope>CUY</scope><scope>CVF</scope><scope>ECM</scope><scope>EIF</scope><scope>NPM</scope><scope>AAYXX</scope><scope>CITATION</scope><scope>IOV</scope><scope>ISR</scope><scope>3V.</scope><scope>7QG</scope><scope>7QL</scope><scope>7QO</scope><scope>7RV</scope><scope>7SN</scope><scope>7SS</scope><scope>7T5</scope><scope>7TG</scope><scope>7TM</scope><scope>7U9</scope><scope>7X2</scope><scope>7X7</scope><scope>7XB</scope><scope>88E</scope><scope>8AO</scope><scope>8C1</scope><scope>8FD</scope><scope>8FE</scope><scope>8FG</scope><scope>8FH</scope><scope>8FI</scope><scope>8FJ</scope><scope>8FK</scope><scope>ABJCF</scope><scope>ABUWG</scope><scope>AEUYN</scope><scope>AFKRA</scope><scope>ARAPS</scope><scope>ATCPS</scope><scope>AZQEC</scope><scope>BBNVY</scope><scope>BENPR</scope><scope>BGLVJ</scope><scope>BHPHI</scope><scope>C1K</scope><scope>CCPQU</scope><scope>D1I</scope><scope>DWQXO</scope><scope>FR3</scope><scope>FYUFA</scope><scope>GHDGH</scope><scope>GNUQQ</scope><scope>H94</scope><scope>HCIFZ</scope><scope>K9.</scope><scope>KB.</scope><scope>KB0</scope><scope>KL.</scope><scope>L6V</scope><scope>LK8</scope><scope>M0K</scope><scope>M0S</scope><scope>M1P</scope><scope>M7N</scope><scope>M7P</scope><scope>M7S</scope><scope>NAPCQ</scope><scope>P5Z</scope><scope>P62</scope><scope>P64</scope><scope>PATMY</scope><scope>PDBOC</scope><scope>PIMPY</scope><scope>PQEST</scope><scope>PQQKQ</scope><scope>PQUKI</scope><scope>PTHSS</scope><scope>PYCSY</scope><scope>RC3</scope><scope>7X8</scope><scope>5PM</scope><scope>DOA</scope><orcidid>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9591-5243</orcidid><orcidid>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2661-7853</orcidid></search><sort><creationdate>20211129</creationdate><title>Transparency in peer review: Exploring the content and tone of reviewers' confidential comments to editors</title><author>O'Brien, Bridget C ; Artino, Jr, Anthony R ; Costello, Joseph A ; Driessen, Erik ; Maggio, Lauren A</author></sort><facets><frbrtype>5</frbrtype><frbrgroupid>cdi_FETCH-LOGICAL-c692t-f2fdf21e6d9a2d5d5958d36068b57a8c08f6fefe1fabe8f57ebac0a46684b16a3</frbrgroupid><rsrctype>articles</rsrctype><prefilter>articles</prefilter><language>eng</language><creationdate>2021</creationdate><topic>Accountability</topic><topic>Alignment</topic><topic>Biology and Life Sciences</topic><topic>Content analysis</topic><topic>Editorial Policies</topic><topic>Editors</topic><topic>Ethics</topic><topic>Feedback</topic><topic>Health sciences</topic><topic>Humans</topic><topic>Medical education</topic><topic>Medical publishing</topic><topic>Medical research</topic><topic>Medicine</topic><topic>Medicine and Health Sciences</topic><topic>Medicine, Experimental</topic><topic>Peer review</topic><topic>Peer Review - methods</topic><topic>Peer Review, Research</topic><topic>Periodicals as Topic</topic><topic>Physical Sciences</topic><topic>Qualitative analysis</topic><topic>Research and Analysis Methods</topic><topic>Research design</topic><topic>Reviews</topic><topic>Revisions</topic><topic>Scholarly publishing</topic><topic>Science Policy</topic><topic>Social Sciences</topic><topic>Statistical analysis</topic><topic>Transparency</topic><toplevel>peer_reviewed</toplevel><toplevel>online_resources</toplevel><creatorcontrib>O'Brien, Bridget C</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Artino, Jr, Anthony R</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Costello, Joseph A</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Driessen, Erik</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Maggio, Lauren A</creatorcontrib><collection>Medline</collection><collection>MEDLINE</collection><collection>MEDLINE (Ovid)</collection><collection>MEDLINE</collection><collection>MEDLINE</collection><collection>PubMed</collection><collection>CrossRef</collection><collection>Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints</collection><collection>Gale In Context: Science</collection><collection>ProQuest Central (Corporate)</collection><collection>Animal Behavior Abstracts</collection><collection>Bacteriology Abstracts (Microbiology B)</collection><collection>Biotechnology Research Abstracts</collection><collection>Nursing & Allied Health Database</collection><collection>Ecology Abstracts</collection><collection>Entomology Abstracts (Full archive)</collection><collection>Immunology Abstracts</collection><collection>Meteorological & Geoastrophysical Abstracts</collection><collection>Nucleic Acids Abstracts</collection><collection>Virology and AIDS Abstracts</collection><collection>Agricultural Science Collection</collection><collection>Health & Medical Collection</collection><collection>ProQuest Central (purchase pre-March 2016)</collection><collection>Medical Database (Alumni Edition)</collection><collection>ProQuest Pharma Collection</collection><collection>Public Health Database</collection><collection>Technology Research Database</collection><collection>ProQuest SciTech Collection</collection><collection>ProQuest Technology Collection</collection><collection>ProQuest Natural Science Collection</collection><collection>Hospital Premium Collection</collection><collection>Hospital Premium Collection (Alumni Edition)</collection><collection>ProQuest Central (Alumni) (purchase pre-March 2016)</collection><collection>Materials Science & Engineering Collection</collection><collection>ProQuest Central (Alumni Edition)</collection><collection>ProQuest One Sustainability</collection><collection>ProQuest Central UK/Ireland</collection><collection>Advanced Technologies & Aerospace Collection</collection><collection>Agricultural & Environmental Science Collection</collection><collection>ProQuest Central Essentials</collection><collection>Biological Science Collection</collection><collection>ProQuest Central</collection><collection>Technology Collection</collection><collection>Natural Science Collection</collection><collection>Environmental Sciences and Pollution Management</collection><collection>ProQuest One Community College</collection><collection>ProQuest Materials Science Collection</collection><collection>ProQuest Central Korea</collection><collection>Engineering Research Database</collection><collection>Health Research Premium Collection</collection><collection>Health Research Premium Collection (Alumni)</collection><collection>ProQuest Central Student</collection><collection>AIDS and Cancer Research Abstracts</collection><collection>SciTech Premium Collection</collection><collection>ProQuest Health & Medical Complete (Alumni)</collection><collection>Materials Science Database</collection><collection>Nursing & Allied Health Database (Alumni Edition)</collection><collection>Meteorological & Geoastrophysical Abstracts - Academic</collection><collection>ProQuest Engineering Collection</collection><collection>ProQuest Biological Science Collection</collection><collection>Agricultural Science Database</collection><collection>Health & Medical Collection (Alumni Edition)</collection><collection>Medical Database</collection><collection>Algology Mycology and Protozoology Abstracts (Microbiology C)</collection><collection>Biological Science Database</collection><collection>Engineering Database</collection><collection>Nursing & Allied Health Premium</collection><collection>Advanced Technologies & Aerospace Database</collection><collection>ProQuest Advanced Technologies & Aerospace Collection</collection><collection>Biotechnology and BioEngineering Abstracts</collection><collection>Environmental Science Database</collection><collection>Materials Science Collection</collection><collection>Publicly Available Content Database</collection><collection>ProQuest One Academic Eastern Edition (DO NOT USE)</collection><collection>ProQuest One Academic</collection><collection>ProQuest One Academic UKI Edition</collection><collection>Engineering Collection</collection><collection>Environmental Science Collection</collection><collection>Genetics Abstracts</collection><collection>MEDLINE - Academic</collection><collection>PubMed Central (Full Participant titles)</collection><collection>TestCollectionTL3OpenAccess</collection><jtitle>PloS one</jtitle></facets><delivery><delcategory>Remote Search Resource</delcategory><fulltext>fulltext</fulltext></delivery><addata><au>O'Brien, Bridget C</au><au>Artino, Jr, Anthony R</au><au>Costello, Joseph A</au><au>Driessen, Erik</au><au>Maggio, Lauren A</au><au>Baccini, Alberto</au><format>journal</format><genre>article</genre><ristype>JOUR</ristype><atitle>Transparency in peer review: Exploring the content and tone of reviewers' confidential comments to editors</atitle><jtitle>PloS one</jtitle><addtitle>PLoS One</addtitle><date>2021-11-29</date><risdate>2021</risdate><volume>16</volume><issue>11</issue><spage>e0260558</spage><epage>e0260558</epage><pages>e0260558-e0260558</pages><issn>1932-6203</issn><eissn>1932-6203</eissn><abstract>Recent calls to improve transparency in peer review have prompted examination of many aspects of the peer-review process. Peer-review systems often allow confidential comments to editors that could reduce transparency to authors, yet this option has escaped scrutiny. Our study explores 1) how reviewers use the confidential comments section and 2) alignment between comments to the editor and comments to authors with respect to content and tone.
Our dataset included 358 reviews of 168 manuscripts submitted between January 1, 2019 and August 24, 2020 to a health professions education journal with a single blind review process. We first identified reviews containing comments to the editor. Then, for the reviews with comments, we used procedures consistent with conventional and directed qualitative content analysis to develop a coding scheme and code comments for content, tone, and section of the manuscript. For reviews in which the reviewer recommended "reject," we coded for alignment between reviewers' comments to the editor and to authors. We report descriptive statistics.
49% of reviews contained comments to the editor (n = 176). Most of these comments summarized the reviewers' impression of the article (85%), which included explicit reference to their recommended decision (44%) and suitability for the journal (10%). The majority of comments addressed argument quality (56%) or research design/methods/data (51%). The tone of comments tended to be critical (40%) or constructive (34%). For the 86 reviews recommending "reject," the majority of comments to the editor contained content that also appeared in comments to the authors (80%); additional content tended to be irrelevant to the manuscript. Tone frequently aligned (91%).
Findings indicate variability in how reviewers use the confidential comments to editor section in online peer-review systems, though generally the way they use them suggests integrity and transparency to authors.</abstract><cop>United States</cop><pub>Public Library of Science</pub><pmid>34843564</pmid><doi>10.1371/journal.pone.0260558</doi><tpages>e0260558</tpages><orcidid>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9591-5243</orcidid><orcidid>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2661-7853</orcidid><oa>free_for_read</oa></addata></record> |
| fulltext | fulltext |
| identifier | ISSN: 1932-6203 |
| ispartof | PloS one, 2021-11, Vol.16 (11), p.e0260558-e0260558 |
| issn | 1932-6203 1932-6203 |
| language | eng |
| recordid | cdi_plos_journals_2604483240 |
| source | Public Library of Science (PLoS) Journals Open Access; MEDLINE; TestCollectionTL3OpenAccess; EZB-FREE-00999 freely available EZB journals; PubMed Central; Free Full-Text Journals in Chemistry |
| subjects | Accountability Alignment Biology and Life Sciences Content analysis Editorial Policies Editors Ethics Feedback Health sciences Humans Medical education Medical publishing Medical research Medicine Medicine and Health Sciences Medicine, Experimental Peer review Peer Review - methods Peer Review, Research Periodicals as Topic Physical Sciences Qualitative analysis Research and Analysis Methods Research design Reviews Revisions Scholarly publishing Science Policy Social Sciences Statistical analysis Transparency |
| title | Transparency in peer review: Exploring the content and tone of reviewers' confidential comments to editors |
| url | https://sfx.bib-bvb.de/sfx_tum?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&ctx_tim=2025-01-27T14%3A15%3A16IST&url_ver=Z39.88-2004&url_ctx_fmt=infofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rfr_id=info:sid/primo.exlibrisgroup.com:primo3-Article-gale_plos_&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Transparency%20in%20peer%20review:%20Exploring%20the%20content%20and%20tone%20of%20reviewers'%20confidential%20comments%20to%20editors&rft.jtitle=PloS%20one&rft.au=O'Brien,%20Bridget%20C&rft.date=2021-11-29&rft.volume=16&rft.issue=11&rft.spage=e0260558&rft.epage=e0260558&rft.pages=e0260558-e0260558&rft.issn=1932-6203&rft.eissn=1932-6203&rft_id=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0260558&rft_dat=%3Cgale_plos_%3EA684187205%3C/gale_plos_%3E%3Curl%3E%3C/url%3E&disable_directlink=true&sfx.directlink=off&sfx.report_link=0&rft_id=info:oai/&rft_pqid=2604483240&rft_id=info:pmid/34843564&rft_galeid=A684187205&rft_doaj_id=oai_doaj_org_article_7d0cdbbf30f849429d6339b9f16aabb7&rfr_iscdi=true |