BMJ 1999;318:44-45 ( 2 January )

Education and debate

Evidence on peer reviewscientific quality control or smokescreen?

Editorial by Smith Papers p   23

Sandra Goldbeck-Wood, assistant editor. 

BMJ, London WC1H 9JR

10176.2501@compuserve.com

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Peer reviewthe process by which experts advise editors on the value of scientific manuscripts submitted for publicationis traditionally surrounded by an almost religious mystique. Published papers are an important part of most assessment systems that decide how academic posts and research grants are distributed. Peer review confers legitimacy not only on scientific journals and the papers they publish but on the people who publish them. But if peer review is so central to the process by which scientific knowledge becomes canonised, it is ironic that science has little to say about whether it works.

Editors have described peer review as "indispensable for the progress of biomedical science."¹ They argue that peer review helps them distinguish between good and bad papers and between good and bad research, that it improves the presentation of what is being published, and even that it educates editors and authors.² When they ask reviewers . . . [Full text of this article]

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Rapid Responses:

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Peer review

Alistair Fielder
bmj.com, 4 Feb 1999 [Full text]