{"id":3120,"date":"2019-09-16T12:19:36","date_gmt":"2019-09-16T12:19:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/understanding-peer-review-my-first-12-months-as-a-journal-editor\/"},"modified":"2025-01-15T06:32:51","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T06:32:51","slug":"understanding-peer-review-my-first-12-months-as-a-journal-editor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/understanding-peer-review-my-first-12-months-as-a-journal-editor","title":{"rendered":"Understanding peer review: My first 12 months as a journal editor"},"content":{"rendered":"

After my first year as an Academic Editor at PLOS One, I\u2019ve learned a lot about the peer review process, including what happens to my own papers when I submit them for review, and why sometimes it takes longer than you expect to get reviews back.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Getting editorial experience.<\/b>\u00a0How do early-mid career researchers find access to editorial experience? I have no idea what the norm is. But I think access to mentorship in this process is a critical gap for early career researchers. Not only does it enable early career researchers to contribute a vital service to their research community, it also gives us an opportunity to gain some perspective on the editorial process when we submit our own papers for review.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been\u00a0reviewing papers for about 6 years<\/a><\/span><\/span>, across more than 30 journals, but the editorial process was a mystery to me. I\u2019d applied numerous times to the open calls for associate editors from British Ecological Society journals without luck, and very few other journals advertise for editorial roles.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A year ago, PLOS invited me to handle a revised paper as a \u2018guest editor\u2019 because, as one of the peer reviewers, I had done a thorough review of the original version and the previous handling editor was no longer available. After handling this one-off paper, I was then invited to join permanently as an academic editor. I\u2019m so grateful for the experience!<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In the 12 months I\u2019ve been an editor, I\u2019ve handled 14 papers (two still under review). These come to me as invitations from the admin office, similar to how peer review invitations work. I declined more than 30 other papers because I didn\u2019t have the time or expertise to handle them. All stats below are from my own editorial record, and are not indicative of the journal overall.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

When the author submits their paper, it goes to the admin office for preliminary checks, who then invites suitable editors to handle the paper. Whichever editor accepts first, gets the paper to handle \u2013 but this can drag on for a while until an invited editor responds. This is good to know, next time you\u2019re wondering why your manuscript is taking so long to be reviewed.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n