Content and communication: How can peer review provide helpful feedback about the writing?

Abstract

Background: Peer review is assumed to improve the quality of research reports as tools for scientific communication, yet strong evidence that this outcome is obtained consistently has been elusive. Failure to distinguish between aspects of discipline-specific content and aspects of the writing or use of language may account for some deficiencies in current peer review processes.

Writing and publishing in peripheral scholarly journals: How to enhance the global influence of multilingual scholars?

“…Moreover, many of these non-native English-speaking scholars grow frustrated by the high rejection rate of their papers submitted to elite journals (Coates, Sturgeon, Bohannan, & Pasini, 2002;Mur Dueñas, 2012;Shashok, 2008;Uzuner, 2008). However, the role of publishing in developing countries cannot be ignored.…”

ICT in Africa: Building a Better Life for All

“…Reporting on publication in the medical research field, Coates, Sturgeon, Bohannan, and Pasini (2002) show that badly written articles correlate with a high rejection rate and that, even though several factors could influence the decision to reject an article, on equal scientific merit, a poorly written article has less chance of being accepted. Shashok (2008) predicts that this situation will continue to worsen because of the decreasing editorial tolerance for less-than-perfect language and writing clearly expected in the instructions for manuscript preparation. For non-native English-speaking scholars, it often requires the investment of significant resources, both of time and money, to produce manuscripts that fulfill the expectations of mainstream editors and reviewers who are most frequently based in high-income countries in the Global North with a good command of English (Salager-Meyer, 2014) or the necessary resources to access language editing.…”

A Systematic Review of Peer Review for Scientific Manuscripts

“…This was to protect the journal from possible backlash caused by the publication of fraudulent papers. Even today, the critical function of peer review is to prevent the publication of incorrect or inadequate research while improving the accuracy and clarity of published papers [16,17,35].…”