USE OF REVIEWERS BY CLINICAL JOURNALS
John Garrow,1 Michael Butterfield,2 Jacinta Marshall,2 and Alex Williamson2
1European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Dial House, 93 Uxbridge Road, Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire WD3 2DQ, UK; 2BMJ Publishing Group, London, UK
Objective: To investigate the use of external reviewers by editors of clinical journals.
Design: We mailed 262 questionnaires to all editors of clinical journals that received at least 1,000 citations in 1994.
Results: Replies were received from 191 editors (73% response). Of responding editors 7% used 1 reviewer, 63% used 2, 25% used 3, and 4% more than 3. Sixty-four percent used checklists to aid reviewers. About half (46%) of editors personally reviewed every paper submitted. Only 20% of editors blinded reviewers to authors, but 93% blinded authors to reviewers. Most editors (69%) did not feel bound to accept the advice of reviewers. Among journals which maintained a database from which reviewers were drawn the number listed ranged from 30 to 12,000: some editors have no database but consult MEDLINE to select suitable reviewers. Most (86%) restrict the number of papers sent to individual reviewers so as not to overburden them. The proportion of editors who sent at least half the papers submitted to reviewers outside their own country was 8/88 (9%) for editorial offices in North America, 23/56 (41%) in the UK, and 33/45 (73%) for other countries.
Conclusions: Typically clinical editors use 2 or 3 reviewers, and 69% do not feel bound to follow the advice they receive, so editing at the "thalamic level" (Lock 1985) applies only to a minority of clinical editors. North American editors use few reviewers outside North America.
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