Peer review: what editors want you to know (in collaboration with PLOS)

Prerequisites

The Office of Scholarly Communication invites you to join three PLOS Scientific Editors for an essential introduction to Peer Review.

If you have recently started peer reviewing, or are ready to get involved, this is an unmissable chance to pick up tips and best practices from PLOS, publishers of some of the top journals in the Life and Medical sciences, including one of the world's largest multi-disciplinary peer-reviewed journals. (PLOS Biology, PLOS Medicine, PLOS Computational Biology, PLOS Genetics, PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, PLOS Pathogens, and PLOS ONE.)

You'll learn:

• what you should include in a review
• how to structure a review for clarity and rigour
• how to phrase comments in a constructive tone
• what editors expect when communicating with potential reviewers
• new types of peer review practices, such as preprint commenting, and published peer review histories

• Researchers
• PhD students

To make the most of the workshop, you should complete the following preparatory activity, which will take around one hour. Read the following articles:

• Getting Started as a Peer Reviewer https://plos.org/resource/10-tips-for-getting-started-as-a-peer-reviewer/
• Responding to an Invitation https://plos.org/resource/youve-been-invited-to-review-now-what/
• How to read a manuscript as a peer reviewer https://plos.org/resource/how-to-read-a-manuscript-as-a-peer-reviewer/
• How to write a peer review https://plos.org/resource/how-to-write-a-peer-review/

Next, skim-read this article from PLOS ONE: Impacts of climate change on agro-climatic suitability of major food crops in Ghana (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0229881) and navigate to the 'Peer Review' tab on the menu just below the title. Read the decision letter based on the original submission (which includes reviewers' comments) and make some notes about successful elements of the review reports (based on your reading of the guidance above) and things you would have done differently. In the live session, we will be discussing the review and you will have an opportunity to ask questions.

Preparatory work and live discussion.

90 minutes