Scholarpedia:Instructions for reviewers
From Scholarpedia
Articles in Scholarpedia must be authoritative, clearly written, up-to-date, and short. To achieve this, Scholarpedia relies on the expertise and good will of its authors and reviewers.
The review process of Scholarpedia articles is anonymous by default, though the reviewers may voluntarily reveal their names.
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Peer review
Scholarpedia enforces the same rigorous anonymous peer review process as most printed journals. This is done primarily
- to insure the accuracy and quality of information, and
- to allow authors to list their papers as peer-reviewed in their CVs and resumes.
Scholarpedia relies on you to enforce the highest scientific standards of its content.
Before you start your review, please read the Scholarpedia:Instructions for authors to familiarize yourself with the style and requirements of a good encyclopedic article.
No Mechanism of Rejection
Authors of Scholarpedia are typically invited or elected to write their entries. Scholarpedia does not have a mechanism of rejection of an article. However, if the article is biased, narrow in scope, or authors do not cooperate with the reviewer to make a good encyclopedic entry, the article could be renamed to something narrower, which reflects its content.
For example, an entry "Neuron", which would be automatically linked to from every Scholarpedia article that has the word "Neuron", thereby bringing huge readership, may talk only about one type of a neuron. Such an article would be renamed to something like "Cortical Neurons", or even narrower, "Cortical Pyramidal Neurons", and hence will have much less readership (because it will be automatically linked to only from the articles that have 'cortical pyramidal neurons' in the text).
Old-fashioned peer-review
Some authors indicate that they prefer "old fashioned review". In this case, you click 'reviews' link above the article's title and then click 'edit reviews' link. Then, you copy and paste your review into the edit window and press 'save page' button. You can modify your review at any time by following the above steps. If the review page contains text submitted by other reviewers, and you are, say, reviewer B, you may start your text with the line
==Reviewer B==
When you are finished, press 'article' button, then 'email alert' button to send an email alert to the authors to tell them that one review is ready. If the article is acceptable, press 'accept' button.
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Wiki-style peer-review
Scholarpedia improves the efficiency of the review process by encouraging reviewers to edit the article directly (unless the authors indicated that they prefer "old fashioned review"). Press 'edit this article' button and correct anything that you think is wrong. (You may even rewrite the whole article, if you think it serves best to the interest of the readers.) Do not forget to press 'save page' button at the end.
Do not describe where the error is or why a paragraph needs to be rewritten: Just fix all errors and rewrite paragraphs that you do not like. The authors can see all your changes by following 'revisions' link, selecting two revisions and comparing them.
If you need to address the authors, you may
- put your questions or concerns in <review> </review> brackets anywhere in the text. You questions will be shown in bold red to the authors, but will be invisible to other readers of the article (unless they open the article for editing).
- put your questions or concerns in <!-- text here --> brackets (less sign, exclamation mark, dash, dash, then text, then dash, dash, greater sign) . The text will be visible only when the article is opened for editing.
- put your reviews, questions, and concerns into the 'reviews' part of the article (see 'reviews' link at the top of the article).
Every time you make a block of revisions to the article, possibly including questions to its authors, press 'email alert' button at the top of the article to send an automated message to the authors alerting them that their actions/response is needed. Every time they revise the article, possibly addressing your concerns, you receive an email notification.
You play this author-reviewer Ping-Pong until the authors address all your concerns and you are satisfied with the article quality. At this stage, you press 'Accept' button at the top of the article, completing your part of the review, and thereby removing your email address from the mailing list.
Reviews are Available to the Public
Remember that your entire dialogue with the authors is recorded in the sequence of article revisions, and it is available for everybody to view. Some may even find your review activity being more exciting than the article itself.
When your review is negative,
- justify it with sufficient precise explanations of each point, giving clear references "who, where, why".
- always respect the author work, even it is bad. So never use a haughty and humiliating form, since the review is not private.
Anonymity of Review
Do not put your name or any other information that may reveal your identity into the article you are reviewing. The review process in Scholarpedia is anonymous by default.
However, you can voluntarily reveal your name for any particular article. Just go to the article, press 'anonymity' button at the top, then press 'reveal your real name' button.
Your name will appear at the end of the article, right after the names of the authors. This way Scholarpedia acknowledges your contribution to the article.
Revealing your name in one article does not change your anonymity in other Scholarpedia articles.
