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Getting Published - How Important is a Peer Review?

If you're new to your scientific industry, it's time to learn an important part of what helps you gain more sponsors based on your research clout.

Since a sponsor or grant is part of what keeps your laboratory financially above water, you need to prove your expertise. Whether in drug discovery, biotechnology, medical devices, or pharmaceuticals, you have to keep your reputation, or face an irreversible downturn.

So what is a peer review and why do you need it? When you receive a peer review, you're giving your studies to an expert in your field to gain an honest opinion. They'll help you determine if you can realistically gain any interest in your research question.

Peer reviews also decide whether the research you're doing is worth the effort within the time frame you set. So what do you do to set up a peer review? One great aspect to gaining such a review is it's done without the reviewer knowing who wrote the paper for complete unbiased opinion.

How Do You Submit Your Research to a Reviewer?
You can submit your paper to professional reviewers online, all in care of an editor's office managing a scientific publication. The editor is the one preparing your paper, including looking it over to make edits before official submission.

In most cases, you'll hear back from the editor within a couple of weeks with notes on what you need to change. Before you submit, be sure to read the rules on journal word or page count. If you don't adhere to this carefully, the editor may reject your submission, or at least ask for lengthy edits.

Once you successfully submit, the editor takes your paper and submits it to several peers for review after publication. The editor takes care in removing all information about you so peers won't accidentally recognize you and give a biased opinion.


What Happens When Peers Review Your Paper
All journals that publish your paper usually demand peers submit a review within a three-month span. This gives them quality time to write a substantial review, even if most write-ups run only a couple of pages. 

In the review, they'll look at various areas going beyond the typical. Analyzing grammatical issues is a given, though they'll scope out how well your research was, analyze your analytic techniques, and your basic conclusions.

Overall, they're going to see what your research paper contributes to your scientific field and whether it helps solve a longstanding problem. How detailed the review all depends on what the journal demands in the way of a review. It also goes on how strong your paper is and whether it warrants more meticulous comment.

What is the Rejection Rate?
Anywhere from 80%-90% of peer review submissions become rejected, especially when submitting to top journals. It's not an easy process, and it should give you stronger incentive to write the best possible research paper before submitting.

If you do get numerous rejections (sometimes taking up to eight months during the review process), you can always resubmit to other publications. Sometimes a rejection is only due to not being the right fit. In most cases, though, a rejection is only due to extreme competition.

One thing you can't do is resubmit your research paper to the same journal rejecting it. You're better off sending out to multiple journals adhering to your scientific philosophies, so do some research on publications beforehand.

Contact us to find out why HSRL is the best option to maintain scientific integrity.

 

HSRL Specializes in Histopathology & Specimen Storage Services

 

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