Peer Review: The Art of Supporting Colleagues and Advancing Our Profession

Why Peer Review? 

Peer review is designed to assist editors in making publishing decisions and to provide constructive feedback to authors. Peer reviewers are necessary partners with authors and editors in the effort to publish innovative, creative, and valid contributions to nursing science. This unpaid but highly valued activity is a hallmark of professional responsibility.

Characteristics of an Effective Review 

A review includes a numerical rating of various elements of the paper, a narrative evaluation for the author, confidential comments to the editor, conflict of interest disclosure, and a recommendation to reject, revise, or accept the manuscript. The most helpful review is one that identifies the strengths of a paper while diligently pointing out the areas that need improvement and how the author can address these limitations in a revision. The tone should be reflective and respectful.1 Authors reading a review of their work should feel encouraged and supported and have clear direction on how to revise their paper. Key questions a reviewer should consider include: Is the submission a good fit for the journal’s readership and mission? Is there cause for outright rejection—for example, is the paper incoherently written, confusing, or fatally flawed? How relevant and important are the findings, considering qualities such as freshness, clinical impact, and timeliness? If the paper is relevant and important but is not at a publishable level, how can the author revise and improve it?2, 3

A 3-step process delineated by Heinrich4 is a helpful structure for writing a critique: (1) mirror: briefly reflect the manuscript’s message as you understand it; (2) appreciate: identify the strengths of the paper; and (3) question: ask questions to pinpoint what is unclear to you as a reader.4 The least helpful review, to both the editor and the author, is one without any narrative evaluation. Reviewers should write the type of review they themselves would want to receive—one that moves the paper closer to making a scholarly contribution to the nursing literature.5

Resources for Reviewers 

In addition to the references included here, the following sites have excellent resources:

I encourage anyone with interest in becoming a Journal reviewer to register on the Elsevier Web site: http://ees.elsevier.com/jen/. A thoughtful, constructive review is a gift to our colleagues and a contribution to our profession.