Writing your review
The first thing to do when writing your review is check back to the emails that the journal sent to you after you accepted the review invitation. Some journals will ask you to follow a specific structure, others might ask you to rate specific aspects of the manuscript, some could have word count limits for reviews (although this is very rare). It’s useful to have all of those things in mind when you start writing.
Jump straight to:
Structure of a review
If the journal you’re reviewing for hasn’t asked you to follow a particular structure, it can be really helpful to have one of your own. The following structure is a good way to set up your comments.
Overview/summary
This should tell the editor and the authors what you felt the main argument of the paper was. Doing this sets the basis for your review and helps to get everyone on the same page right from the start. If your main takeaway from the paper is different from what the authors intended, it also lets them know that some major rewriting is probably needed. The summary should only be a sentence or two – the authors and editors don’t need a paragraph-by-paragraph recap.
Major points to be addressed
After summarizing your takeaways from the manuscript, you should move on to the most important things that the authors would need to address in order to improve it. It can be tempting to go through your points in the order that they appear in the paper, but this can lead to some significant suggestions being missed or downplayed. Putting your most important concerns at the beginning of your review (especially if you put them under a ‘Major Points’ heading) ensures that the authors will give them full consideration.
Your major concerns can be written out in paragraphs or in a bulleted list (unless the editor has made a specific formatting request). You should make sure that you explain each point that you make and try to give a suggestion for how it could be addressed where possible. For example, it’s more helpful to say ‘The discussion of X was confusing because there wasn’t enough information about Y – you may wish to consider citing Author A and Author B to address this’ than it is to say ‘The discussion of X was confusing’. A good rule of thumb is to try to have a concise paragraph (2-5 sentences) for each major point.
Major points don’t just need to be things that should be corrected or improved. You can also use this section to highlight the best parts of the manuscript to the editors. Telling the editor what makes the manuscript good is incredibly helpful and will make their decision easier. If another reviewer has recommended rejection, saying why the paper should be considered for publication can make it easier for the editor to agree with you.
Minor points and notes
Once you’ve given the authors and editors the main points of your review, you can move on to any minor points that you think could help to improve the paper. A heading to separate these from your major points will help the authors see which points they should be spending most of their time and effort addressing.
Minor points can be anything from stylistic notes, to things you’d like to see, but are just personal preference, to suggestions that could improve the paper, but aren’t vital. If the paper could be accepted for publication without the authors addressing a point, then it should be considered minor.
As with the major points, minor points can be positive. If there’s a particular sentence or insight that you loved, feel free to tell the authors here.
Confidential comments to the editor
Finally, most journals will allow you to make confidential comments to the editors as part of your review. These won’t be seen by the author and there are a few reasons why you may want to use them:
- To give a recommendation: you shouldn’t include a specific recommendation in the main section of your review. Providing a recommendation in the part of the review that is sent to the author can make things awkward for the editor if they and/or the other reviewer don’t agree with you. It’s best to keep the recommendation between you and the editor
- To note elements that you were unsure of: if you didn’t feel confident reviewing a certain aspect of the manuscript (maybe the authors touched on an element of philosophy that you’re not familiar with or brought in a theological argument that you haven’t read about before), let the editors know. This allows the editor to weight your comments (if there are any on those elements) appropriately.
- To make recommendations that may disclose your identity: sometimes you’ll read a paper and realise that citing one of your articles could help to improve the manuscript. It’s not always appropriate to suggest that authors cite your work and it could make it easier for the authors to figure out who you are. If you genuinely feel that the manuscript would benefit from citing one of your papers though, let the editor know and they can decide whether to recommend that the authors include the citation.
What makes a good review?
Even if your review is well-structured, there are some things that you need to keep in mind to make sure that you’ve written a good review.
- The golden rule: keep your review professional and polite: you may have received negative reviews as an author – if so, you’ll know that they can be tough to take. Getting a negative review that’s written politely and professionally, with an aim to improving the paper rather than criticizing it is a much nicer experience though. You shouldn’t actively avoid any kind of criticism in your review – you’ll often have to give negative comments or recommend rejection. Mean comments or rants about the manuscript or the authors should be avoided at all costs though.
- If you’re unsure whether your review is too harsh, ask a colleague or supervisor to read over the review without reading the paper. They’ll be able to comment on the language of your review, but (as they won’t have any knowledge of the manuscript) they should be able to stay neutral and give you objective feedback. Another option is to leave the review a day or so and then re-read it before submitting. You may find that you are able to soften your language after a bit of a break. Finally, if there are unkind comments that you just can’t hold back, put them in the confidential comments to the editor.
- Stay objective: it can be tempting to criticise a manuscript for not being the paper that you would have written. Being as objective as possible is the key to a good review though. Even if you disagree with the conclusions that they come to, your aim should be to help the authors improve their work, not change it into something else.
- Be reasonable: you should try to make sure that your requests and suggestions are realistic for the authors. Think about how much work would go into making the changes that you’re recommending – especially if additional primary research or travel to access sources would be necessary. The changes that you recommend should also be relevant to the stated aims of the paper. This ties into the objectivity point above.
- Make your comments constructive: good reviews are often critical. But the way that your review is critical is very important. Any issues should be plainly stated and then followed by suggestions of how to address them.
- Think about the word count: when reviewing, you’ll generally find that there are things you think the authors should add (another reference, more detail on a certain point). But many authors will already be close to the word count for their manuscript on the initial submission. If you’re asking for multiple additions, try to note some areas where the authors could make space as well.
- Be precise where you can: where possible, use line and page numbers to let the authors and editor know where the paper could be improved or where the errors you’re noting can be found. Don’t be afraid of including direct quotes from the paper.
What makes a bad review?
We’re going to close the section on writing your review with a few common mistakes that people make that you’ll want to avoid. Try to make sure that you’re not submitting one of the following reviews:
- The really short review: sometimes, reviews will come in that are only one or two sentences long. They’re the most frustrating types of reviews that editors ever receive and they do nothing to help the authors. Reviews that just say ‘this paper is good’ or ‘this paper is bad’ are so unhelpful that editors will either need to focus completely on the other reviewer’s comments or seek an additional review of the manuscript (causing delays to the review process). Even if you think that the manuscript you’ve reviewed is the best (or the worst) paper you’ve ever read, it’s important to explain why.
- The contradictory review: it’s sometimes difficult to be critical of a paper in a review. For some of us, it feels like we’re being mean to the authors if we say anything negative. Some reviewers try to avoid this by being very positive in their comments to the authors (e.g. ‘thank you for this interesting and well-written manuscript’) and using the confidential section of the review for the negative comments (e.g. for the same paper ‘the writing was awful and the argument has been made countless times already’). When this happens, the editor needs to incorporate the negative comments into their own notes to the author. To the author, it looks like the editor has ignored the reviewer’s comments because they personally disagree with the paper. This tends to lead to time-consuming appeals. If there are issues in a paper that need to be addressed, they should be included in the comments to the authors.
- The vague review: as an author, you may have received reviews that say a section of your manuscript ‘needs work’ or that you’ve missed ‘some key references’. If so, you’ll know just how unhelpful these vague comments are. It gives no explanation of why there are problems with the paper or how they can be addressed. If you can’t pair comments like these with suggestions of how to address them, it’s often best to just leave them out.
- The mean review: yes, this is a repetition of ‘The Golden Rule’ above. But it’s important and it bears repeating. Your comments to the authors should be professional and constructive – even if they’re negative or you’re recommending that the editor rejects the paper. Nobody sets out to write a bad paper and the person who will eventually read your review will have put a lot of time and effort into the work you’re commenting on. Try to keep those things in mind when you’re writing a review of a paper that you didn’t enjoy reading or disagreed with.
Overall, the key to writing a good review is to write the kind of review you’d want to receive: detailed, constructive, and professional.
Where to now?
- Back: What to look for when reviewing
- Next: Reviewing a revision
- Return to the ECR Hub homepage
- Ready to submit your article? Find the full list of Edinburgh University Press journals that you can submit to here
