The Rewards of Reading Instructions from Journal Editors

To the Editor: Editors, when they send manuscripts to external consultants for peer review, usually include a letter that provides some instructions regarding what the reviewers should do, when they should do it, and related matters. My colleagues and I have wondered how often these instructions are read, and we recently conducted a small study to find out. Our letter to reviewers consists of four paragraphs that in aggregate occupy about two thirds of a page. The longest paragraph asks the reviewer to evaluate such factors as the originality and design of the study described in the manuscript, the interpretation . . .