A peek behind the curtain: Peer review and editorial decision making at Stroke

Editor's NoteThe mechanisms of peer review and editorial decision making often appear opaque to junior academic neurologists, especially those who have not yet published many papers or served as journal referees themselves. Previous entries in the NeuroGenesis career development series from the Editor‐in‐Chief have reviewed some of the reasons why faculty should participate as peer reviewers when given the opportunity and the factors that authors should consider in choosing appropriate journals for their own manuscripts. In this article, Sposato et al present the results of a systematic analysis of the editorial process at a leading neurology subspecialty journal; their findings will be of interest to readers at all stages of their careers who seek a better understanding of what goes on “behind the scenes” in journal decisions. — Bernard Chang, MD, NeuroGenesis Editor ObjectiveA better understanding of the manuscript peer‐review process could improve the likelihood that research of the highest quality is funded and published. To this end, we aimed to assess consistency across reviewers' recommendations, agreement between reviewers' recommendations and editors' final decisions, and reviewer‐ and editor‐level factors influencing editorial decisions at the journal Stroke. MethodsWe analyzed all initial original contributions submitted to Stroke from January 2004 through December 2011. All submissions were linked to the final editorial decision (accept vs reject)....
Source: Annals of Neurology - Category: Neurology Authors: Tags: NeuroGenesis Source Type: research