What Is Peer Review?

The peer review process is used to assess scholarly articles. Experts in a discipline similar to the author critique an article’s methodology, findings, and reasoning to evaluate it for possible publication in a journal. Editors of scholarly journals use the peer review process to decide which articles to publish, and the academic world relies on the peer review process to validate scholarly articles.

Peer Review in 3 Minutes

The Peer Review Process

The peer review process involves many steps.

• An article is submitted to a journal.
• The journal editor decides if the article fits the scope of the journal.
• If it fits the scope, the article is sent to reviewers.
• Reviewers make a recommendation on whether the article should be published, including whether the article needs major or minor revisions. 
• If an author is asked to make revisions, the author can resubmit the article after addressing the reviewers’ comments. This process may go through several rounds before an article is ultimately accepted by the editor.