{"id":3135,"date":"2019-09-19T10:27:26","date_gmt":"2019-09-19T10:27:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/why-i-dont-want-to-be-paid-for-peer-review\/"},"modified":"2025-01-15T06:32:50","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T06:32:50","slug":"why-i-dont-want-to-be-paid-for-peer-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/why-i-dont-want-to-be-paid-for-peer-review","title":{"rendered":"Why I don’t want to be paid for peer review"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you believe the hype, peer review is\u00a0flawed<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0corrupt<\/a>, a broken system threatening to undermine the very foundations of academia\u2026 particularly science<\/a>. From\u00a0fake reviews<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0biased ones<\/a>, one of the main arguments for ditching the system is the myth that reviewers can no longer be trusted to give a fair assessment of another scientist\u2019s paper.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But the problem is not with peer review\u00a0per se<\/i>, it\u2019s with our expectations of the system.<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Right now, many people think peer review means, \u201cThis paper is great and trustworthy!\u201d In reality, it should mean something like, \u201cA few scientists have looked at this paper and didn\u2019t find anything wrong with it, but that doesn\u2019t mean you should take it as gospel. Only time will tell.\u201d<\/a><\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The academic review system as we know it today\u00a0began around the 1960s<\/a>. But the process of peer review has been around for centuries, formally and informally, from the\u00a0Greek Agora<\/a>\u00a0to the first Royal Society meetings.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We need peer review because science (and scholarship generally) is a community endeavour.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Sure, there are some cheaters, but\u00a0most scientists behave ethically<\/a>. In my short career, most of the reviews I\u2019ve received have been genuinely helpful and I\u2019ve published better papers because of them.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

One solution being argued for in op-eds and\u00a0on social media<\/a>\u00a0is to pay reviewers for the time spent reviewing. There are lots of reasons why this won\u2019t work.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Peer review is a community service, not a commodity.<\/b>\u00a0A community service, by definition, is unpaid work with good intentions to help individuals or the community as a whole. As an academic, peer review is a way of giving back to the community that helped you build your own career. Commoditising a voluntary community service is not the best way to change a system that already suffers from ethical issues.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We have a long human history of complicating things once money gets involved\u2026 look at why\u00a0people don\u2019t understand ecosystem services<\/a>. Placing a value on something, monetary or not, immediately changes how we interact with that system. Non-monetary incentives (e.g. journal subscriptions) might help some people, but probably\u00a0won\u2019t change a reviewer\u2019s mind if they don\u2019t have time<\/a>\u00a0to accept a review request. Look\u00a0here<\/a> for a thoughtful discussion of credit\u00a0for peer review schemes. And, more to the point, how does paying a reviewer guarantee that he or she will do a better review?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Paying reviewers won\u2019t reduce bias.<\/b>\u00a0Unfair assessment because of personal biases<\/a>\u00a0against the author is one of the biggest risks with peer review. Paying reviewers definitely won\u2019t reduce this risk.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Double-blind review is often argued as a way to combat unfairness inherent in the current system (where reviewers know the author\u2019s name but not the other way around). But this will never work, because many authors often need to cite their previous work to build a case for the current study.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Open review (where both author and reviewer know each other\u2019s names) is a better option, as it increases ethical responsibility on both sides. It also works better than incentives to increase the quality of the review.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve reviewed for open-access journal PeerJ, where they offer me the option to sign my review, and also an incentive (a free publication) if I finish the review in 10 days. I have never \u2018won\u2019 the free publication, because a 10 day turnaround has never fit my schedule. But I always choose to sign the review\u2026 and yes, I spend more time on it!<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Paying reviewers won\u2019t fix the novelty problem.<\/b>\u00a0One of the main issues with scholarly publishing is journal editors who think they\u2019re publishing popular media instead of knowledge. Paying reviewers won\u2019t stop editors unfairly rejecting a perfectly decent paper because it\u2019s not sexy enough\u2026 or because it doesn\u2019t include a meta-analysis (that actually happened to me).<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It also won\u2019t fix the issue of overburdened reviewers<\/b>, an issue that is very hard to define.\u00a0This fish biologist<\/a>\u00a0reviews 100 papers per year, but separate studies have shown that\u00a0political scientists<\/a>,\u00a0meteorologists<\/a>,\u00a0and\u00a0nurses<\/a>\u00a0review an average 5-8 papers per year. Is this a disciplinary thing, or is it because \u2018famous\u2019 or more experienced academics get more review requests than less-experienced academics? This\u00a0study of 4 ecology journals<\/a>, found that 20-52% of reviewers were doing fewer reviews\/year than they should have be. But it doesn\u2019t clarify whether these reviewers are declining review requests or just not being asked in the first place.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

So if paying reviewers doesn\u2019t fix any of the real problems with the system, and just creates more ethical problems, then it\u2019s not really a solution. Also see\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0here<\/a>,\u00a0why a couple of editors quit Scientific Reports<\/i> over payment-for-review schemes.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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I like peer review because it\u2019s based on a mutual relationship. Sometimes there are glitches and broken links, and sometimes mutualisms turn into antagonisms. But is the whole concept of peer review flawed and unjust, just because some people don\u2019t play nice?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

There are very few mutual \u2018give-and-take\u2019 relationships where both parties experience both the give and the take in the same way. Bees and flowers are in a mutual relationship. But you don\u2019t see flowers flying around looking for bees to feed on\u2026<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

This two-way relationship is invaluable to my own research. Reviewing other people\u2019s papers is one of the best motivations to improve my own writing and it also helps me keep abreast of how other researchers are approaching the same problems I\u2019m working on. And I\u2019m a pretty impatient person, so peer review is one of the best forms of instant gratification therapy!<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re new to peer review, here are some good resources:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n