SynthesiseLife2019
Co-reviewing and ghostwriting by early-career researchers in the peer review of manuscripts.
Synthesis in eLife, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- The value of joint peer review between early career researchers and supervisors.Trends in cell biology · 2025Article
- Reviewing manuscripts for scientific journals: recommendations for early career scientists.BMC research notes · 2025Article
- The inauguralmBio · 2024Article
- Fostering student authorship skills in synthetic biology.Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology · 2024Article
- Preprint Peer Review Enhances Undergraduate Biology Students' Disciplinary Literacy and Sense of Belonging in STEM.Journal of microbiology & biology education · 2023Article
- Article
- Investing in the Academic Writing: Training Future Reviewers and Sustaining Efficient and Quality Peer Review.Cureus · 2022Review
- Article
- Toward More Inclusive Metrics and Open Science to Measure Research Assessment in Earth and Natural Sciences.Frontiers in research metrics and analytics · 2022Article
- What has changed after the COVID-19 pandemic in the publication process? A look-back to "Transfusion clinique et biologique".Transfusion clinique et biologique : journal de la Societe francaise de transfusion sanguine · 2021Article
- How to bring peer review ghostwriters out of the dark.Molecular biology of the cell · 2021Article
- Article
- Recognizing the involvement of early-career researchers in peer review.Nature reviews. Endocrinology · 2020Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Many early-career researchers are involved in the peer review of manuscripts for scientific journals, typically under the guidance of or jointly with their advisor, but most of the evidence about this activity is anecdotal. Here we report the results of a literature review and a survey of researchers, with an emphasis on co-reviewing and 'ghostwriting'. The literature review identified 36 articles that addressed the involvement of early-career researchers in peer review, most of them about early-career researchers and their advisors co-reviewing manuscripts for the purposes of training: none of them addressed the topic of ghostwriting in detail. About three quarters of the respondents to the survey had co-reviewed a manuscript. Most respondents believe co-reviewing to be a beneficial (95%) and ethical (73%) form of training in peer review. About half of the respondents have ghostwritten a peer review report, despite 81% responding that ghostwriting is unethical and 82% agreeing that identifying co-reviewers to the journal is valuable. Peer review would benefit from changes in both journal policies and lab practices that encourage mentored co-review and discourage ghostwriting.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.