Peer review is essential for improving research quality

Peer review is essential for improving research quality

Key points:

• Constructive feedback: Peer review aims to enhance, not criticize, research

• Collaborative approach: Seeking help from colleagues can ease the process of addressing feedback

The bottom line: Viewing peer review as a collaborative tool fosters better research outcomes.

Video transcript

"About peer review, I think it's an awesome way to help each other to improve our work. And I remember watching this workshop at Elsevier Academy about how to manage the comment from your peer reviewers, and then because every time you... oh, in my case, I write a paper, I put so much emotion, so much effort and I try to do my best that when I receive the feedback and, I say, 'Oh, this is not a good feedback, I feel a little bit depressed.'

"But to be honest, when you can understand that that's not the way, that's the way [they] are doing with the aim of improvement, I think that's changed my mind from scratch because now every time I receive feedback from peer reviews I'm happy. Okay, yes, that is true. Oh no, he didn't realize this. I'm going to clarify just, so now I'm happy to answer all the question[s], all the suggestions they are sending to me.

"So I think that we need to change also as a researcher because, I don't know, two weeks ago with another colleague, she said 'I received the feedback from the peer review, they kill my paper.' I don't think so. Yes, I don't think so. I help[ed] her. And we went one by one through the comments and after the second, the second reading of the comments, she was calm. She was someone that say[s], 'Oh, see, maybe because of that, maybe because... So I strongly [recommend that] each researcher that feel[s] that peer review make[s] a huge mistake, ask another colleague to help you to answer the comments."

[Transcript generated by AI with human review]