A manuscript is published in top journals only after it is approved by peer reviewers, who are subject matter experts and noted scientists who have published high quality papers in top journals.
As young researchers and graduate students, peer review is the process that defines their career in research and academia. Peer review can be a daunting process, especially for scientists who are not native speakers of English (ESL). Once the author submits their work to the journal, the manuscript is evaluated by anonymous group of peer reviewers to whom the paper is sent by the journal editor. The author never gets to know the peer reviewers and so it seems like a one-sided trial in a court-room.
The peer review process evaluates the scientific accuracy and language presentation of a manuscript. In other words, a manuscript that is poorly written in English may be rejected outright by the journal. Moreover, issues with the scientific accuracy of the manuscript may be pointed out by peer reviewers. Most ESL scientists seek the help of native English scientists to polish their manuscript for English language errors.
Researchers and graduate students have to make sure that they receive a favorable outcome from peer review process: “Accepted” or “Revise and Resubmit” verdict. If the verdict of peer review process is “Rejected,” it sounds a death knell to the career of graduate students and young researchers who have spent several months or even years pursuing their doctorate program. They must have even spent a lot of time writing their manuscript. A translated manuscript of ESL scientist has to break even the barriers of language.
Here are some excellent tips to ESL scientists for handling the daunting process of peer review.
In the peer review process, noted scientists evaluate the manuscript on the following parameters: hypothesis, data, evidence, and conclusions. A paper that meets the requirements of all these parameters is accepted by the journal editor.
English language errors
Most ESL scientists face the barrier of language when they submit their work to English journals. A good scientist may be innovative in the laboratory but that does not necessarily mean that they are well aware of the nuances of English language. Thus, although an ESL scientist must have made path-breaking discoveries, the ESL scientist ends up writing a paper that has several English language errors. Hiring a native English scientist can certainly help an ESL scientist to improve the quality of the manuscript in terms of English language errors.
Reference citations
It is very important to cite references for your work to avoid plagiarism issues. Peer reviewers evaluate hypothesis, data, evidence and conclusion based on the references cited in the manuscript. The references serve as evidence to the experimental study design. A peer reviewer goes through the bibliography in the reference list after perusing through the paper.
A sparse bibliography is one of the major reasons for rejection of manuscript by peer reviewers. Another red flag would be a manuscript with few primary sources as citations. This error is often committed by graduate students who usually cite only online sources. Papers lacking original sources of literature reviews as primary citations raise a red flag among peer reviewers. It is important to remember that peer reviewers are expert in their field and a paper lacking proper reference citation to back novelty of experimental study is often rejected.
Stacked bibliographies
An experimental study seems to be biased and skewed if the reference list contains papers published by a single laboratory/research institute/university. This implies that the authors of the experimental study are biased by the point of view of a single institution or group of researchers. The scientific study is unbiased and rational when the bibliography includes work of different sources.
Abstract overloaded with excess information
Quite often, peer reviewers come across abstracts that promise more than what is delivered in the entire manuscript. The abstract is quite often written by scientists at the start of the experimental study. However, research projects depend completely on funding and grants; therefore, many experimental studies are altered during the course of execution and implementation. In totality, the manuscript that scientists end up writing may not be the one that was envisioned at the start of the research project. In such cases, it is imperative to rewrite the abstract that precisely describes the current context and content of the manuscript. The abstract should precisely describe the research study within 250 to 300 words.
Submission to incorrect journal
A paper must be submitted to a journal that correctly defines the scope and aims of the study. Therefore, a researcher must peruse through different journals in a particular discipline before identifying the one that correctly fits within the scope and aim of the manuscript. A paper submitted to a wrong journal is usually met with rejection.