A colleague once told me that they only review three papers per year and then refuse any further requests for reviewing. Her reasoning was as follows:
- I publish one paper a year (on average)
- This paper incurs three peer reviews
- Therefore, I owe “the system” three reviews.
It’s difficult to fault this logic. However, I think that as a senior scientist with a wealth of experience, the system would benefit greatly from more of her input. Actually, I don’t think she sticks rigorously to this and I know that she is an Academic Editor at a journal so, in fact she contributes much more to the system than she was letting on.
I thought of this recently when – in the space of one week – I got three peer review requests, which I accepted. I began to wonder about my own debit and credit in the peer review system. I only have reliable data from 2010.
Reviews incurred as an author are in gold (re-reviews are in pale gold), reviews completed as a peer are in purple (re-reviews are in pale purple). They are plotted cumulatively and the difference – or the balance – is shown by the markers. So, I have been in a constant state of owing the system reviews and I’m in no position to be turning down review requests.
In my defence, I was for two years Section Editor at BMC Cell Biology which means that I contributed more to the system that the plot shows. Another thing is reviews incurred/completed as a grant applicant/referee. I haven’t factored those in, but I think this would take the balance down further. I also comment on colleagues papers and grant applications.
Thinking back, I’ve only ever turned down a handful of peer review requests. Reasons being either that the work was too far outside my area of expertise or that I had a conflict of interest. I’ve never cited a balance of zero as a reason for not reviewing and this analysis shows that I’m not in this category.
In case any Editors are reading this… I’m happy to review work in my area, but please remember I currently have three papers to review!
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The post title comes from a demo recording by The Posies that can be found on the At Least, At Last compilation on Not Lame Recordings.