Authors, editors, publishers, and readers alike recognize the need for quality peer review – the process of validating: scientific reliability, rigour and integrity; the importance of the work to readers and the originality, besides other things.
We would like to encourage any scholars/academics/practitioners to become peer reviewers. If you are interested in reviewing papers for any of ACAMH’s journals (the Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry (JCPP), the Child & Adolescent Mental Health (CAMH) journal, and JCPP Advances), please get in touch with the Publications Team.
Top Tips From Wiley
1. Respond Promptly to Invitations
When you receive an invitation to review, the article’s abstract will help you decide whether it’s within your area of interest and expertise. Remember to respond promptly or else you might delay the process.
2. Show Integrity
Keep the contents of any manuscripts you’re reviewing confidential. You would expect the same of others reviewing your own work. What’s more, if you’ve submitted similar research of your own, or if you’ve reviewed the article for a different journal, let the editor know there’s a conflict of interest.
3. Stay Within Scope
When commenting, make sure your remarks stay within the scope of the paper and don’t veer off subject. If you’re unclear of the scope, editorial policy, presentation and submission requirements, speak to the editor or read the Author Guidelines.
4. Be Constructive
Your review should ultimately help the author improve the paper. So make sure you offer some constructive feedback, even if your recommendation ends up being to reject.
5. Allocate Enough Time
Carefully analyzing and commenting on a manuscript can take a good chunk of time. Make sure you have enough time available when taking on a review.
6. Be Consistent
Structure your comments by numbering them. It makes the editor’s life a lot easier. You can also divide them into major and minor issues to help authors prioritize corrections. Keep comments to authors separate from the confidential ones to editors. But make sure your comments to authors correspond to your assessment on the confidential review and checklists.
7. Focus on the Research
If you’re reviewing a paper that’s in English but wasn’t written by a native speaker, it’s good to be tolerant and point out elements that change the meaning, rather than commenting on the quality of their English.
8. Look at the Conclusion First
The conclusion will give you a good idea whether the research is an exciting development within its own field.
9. Check Robustness of Facts
Editors find it useful if you comment on the number of replicates, controls and statistical analyses. Strong statistics are crucial to determining whether the outcome is robust.
10. Give Credit Where It’s Due
If a paper you’re reviewing is really good and an excellent addition to the existing literature, don’t be afraid to say so.
Ethical guidelines and considerations
Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
COPE is a forum for editors of peer-reviewed journals to discuss issues related to the integrity of the scientific record. It supports and encourages editors to report, catalogue and instigate investigations into ethical problems in the publication process.
JCPP, CAMH and JCPP Advances all require editors to adhere to COPE guidelines. COI forms are regularly updated and are required from all editorial boards.
All three journals also conform to ICMJE best practice.
CAMH – Sample Reviewer Form
Find out more about what peer review involves by accessing our Sample Reviewer Form for our journal, the Child & Adolescent Mental Health (CAMH) journal.
Time and again, surveys have shown that researchers give up valuable research, clinical and teaching time to contribute to peer review as they see contributing to the integrity of the published literature as an essential part of their job and they are also quite aware that it is a valuable way to stay up-to-date with research trends in their field. However, peer reviewers of ACAMH journals can opt for recognition on Publons. If you opt in, your Publons profile will automatically be updated to show a verified record of this review in full compliance with the journal’s review policy. If you don’t have a Publons profile, you will be prompted to create a free account.
Additionally, CAMH reviewers affiliated to institutes in USA can claim 3.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ per original manuscript being reviewed. More information can be found on the CAMH journal page of the Wiley website.