An evaluation of the process of peer review

The system of pre-publication editorial peer review (normally known simply as peer review or the referee system) has been used to critique, and hence improve, draft academic manuscripts, and documents such as book proposals, internal corporate reports, research grants and teaching materials for many years. In summary, the submitted documents are sent to one or more carefully selected experts (peers), who are asked to read and comment critically on them. In particular, but not exclusively, reviewers are asked to point out any unjustified claims, improper interpretations and extraneous results to the editors. The reviewer reports help the editors reach a decision as to whether the manuscript should be published, with or without revisions, or not at all. All researchers who have a track record in a certain discipline may be asked to undertake peer reviews.