Peer Review: Again

Abstract

During the past 10 years, Groundwater published three editorials focused entirely or in part on the peer review system (Chappelle 2013; Haitjema 2014; Missimer 2015). Do we need a new editorial on this topic? Peer review is so critical to our operation as a journal and to your success as a publishing groundwater scientist or engineer (whether in a journal or professional work), that some reminders, refreshers, suggestions, and overview are indeed warranted. Some argue that the journal peer-review system is a failure (e.g., Mastroianni 2022). Peer review is an expensive, time consuming, publication-delaying system whose benefits are difficult to quantify and whose outcomes are sometimes determined arbitrarily, subjectively, and with some randomness. It is a huge imposition on the scientific community. Randomness enters in the sense that a large population of qualified reviewers on a particular topic may exist and may have a range of opinions on the acceptability of a given study, but only a very small subset of that population is chosen (or accepts the invitation) to provide a review. A different but apparently acceptable subset of reviewers can produce an opposite decision. Furthermore, an editor selecting reviewers may not know for sure whether that reviewer is well versed in the subspecialty described in the study (especially true if the study is breaking new ground). So, peer review can be a crapshoot. However, competent review comments will benefit an author and a journal. If the review comments are reasonable and constructive, authors can learn, benefit from alternative perspectives, and improve their science and their communication clarity. Authors may be requested to collect additional data or apply additional analyses or alternative conceptual models. Good reviews can help an editor distinguish between weak/poor science and weak/poor writing. The former warrants a rejection, while the latter might warrant another chance to revise and rewrite (noting that poor writing can preclude a comprehensive assessment of the science). Although an editor can immediately reject an obviously poor manuscript, such a decision is often not obvious to a single person (the editor). If more than one reviewer offers a justified recommendation to reject, the final decision is more likely to be the correct one. Peer review systems are not perfect. I've experienced reviews on the same manuscript where one reviewer thought the work should be rejected, whereas another reviewer recommended that it be accepted with little to no revision. Many of you have had this same frustrating experience. This dichotomy reflects the subjectivity and perhaps the randomness of the review process, as well as the possible presence of scientific bias of one kind or another in reviewers. As an Editor, when such a spread of recommendations is returned on the same manuscript, it certainly forces us to delve deeper into the manuscript to make a better informed determination for a final decision. As an author, if your manuscript is not well-written, clear, concise, logically presented, well organized, and with good grammar and spelling, then reviewers are more likely to misunderstand your presentation, have less faith in the science, not want to read further, and be more inclined to reject your manuscript. If your writing is fuzzy or foggy, a reviewer may infer that your science is also. My advice is to get a colleague to provide a critical but "friendly" review of your manuscript before submitting it to a journal. If you are fairly new to technical writing or if English is not your native language, it might be helpful for you to get the services of a technical writer or editor to help organize the manuscript and make your presentation clearer. Obtaining the "correct" peer review decision will be more likely if we use more reviewers. However, the benefit/cost ratio for doing so is not favorable. This journal currently strives to obtain three qualified reviews, and we sometimes have difficulty in accomplishing this—at the cost of unfortunate delays. So, a larger sample size is not realistic. As a reviewer, remember that not every published work has to be as comprehensive as a Ph.D. thesis. Be considerate of the time and cost of performing any additional studies or work that you want to request; is that additional work really required or would it just be nice to have? As an author, you do not have to agree with or accept every comment and suggestion. But if you do not, then you need to clearly explain and defend why you feel that way in your detailed responses to review comments. The editors will arbitrate such differences. As a published author, you've benefitted from peer reviews. If you are asked to review a manuscript, please remember how you felt as an author. Pay back the helpful reviews you've received. We know you can't accept every invitation, but consider accepting one if you haven't done a review in a month or two. If you've reviewed a paper and it gets published with a method, hypothesis, or conclusion that you disagree with (perhaps the author or editor ignored your comment or advice), then write a letter to the editor to share your concerns. Groundwater journal encourages publication of such letters and comments, as well as replies, but receives surprisingly few. I'm not sure why. Does every reader agree with every author, or do readers not want to be viewed as being "cranky"? Or is there an unwritten code that "thou shalt not criticize a fellow hydrogeologist"? I hope not. Or are we all too busy to bother? Again, I hope not. The discussions inherent in letters and replies can be very enlightening to the readership of the journal. Although the peer review system has its problems, the process leads to greater clarity and credibility of published writings. Ultimately, peer review, whether it is for journal publication or professional work, is critical to advancing and applying scientific research and methods to address groundwater interests and problems.

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