Peer review is the system used to assess the quality of a manuscript before it is published. It is designed to assess the validity, quality and often the originality of articles for publication. Its ultimate purpose is to maintain the integrity of manuscripts by filtering out invalid or poor quality articles.
What peer review does is improving the quality of published papers by motivating authors to submit good quality work – and helping to improve that work through the peer review process.
When a manuscript is submitted to a journal, it is assessed to see if it meets the criteria for submission. If it does, the editorial team will select potential peer reviewers within the field of research to peer-review the manuscript and make recommendations.
There are three main types of peer review:
Single Blind Review
The reviewers know the names of the authors, but the names of the reviewers are not revealed to the author. This is the conventional method of reviewing and is, by far, the most common type. The Reviewer's anonymity allows for impartial decisions free from influence by the author.
Double Blind Review
The reviewers do not know the names of the authors, and the authors do not know who reviewed their manuscript. Author anonymity prevents any reviewer bias based on, for example, an author’s country of origin or previous controversial work. Articles written by renowned authors are considered on the basis of the content of their papers, rather than on the author’s reputation.
Open Review
The authors know who the reviewers are, and the reviewers know who the authors are. If the manuscript is accepted, the named reviewer reports are published alongside the article.
Different journals use different types of peer review. Nsibidi Journal of Humanities uses the Double Blind Review process.
