Author-suggested reviewers rate manuscripts much more favorably: A cross-sectional analysis of the neuroscience section of PLOS ONE

How does reviewer selection relate to manuscript evaluations?

This study examines the association between author-suggested reviewers and peer-review outcomes. It uses records from the neuroscience section of PLOS ONE to compare reviewer invitations, evaluations, and acceptance outcomes.

What the study found

• Manuscripts reviewed entirely by author-suggested panels had an acceptance probability about 20 percentage points higher than those with entirely editor-suggested panels.
• Author-suggested reviewers agreed to review less often in the studied records.

How the study works

The cross-sectional analysis covers close to 8,000 manuscripts, 46,000 authors, and 21,000 reviewers, and examines multiple stages of the review process.

Scope and limitations

• These are associations from a particular journal section, not a randomized experiment.
• Reviewer selection, manuscript characteristics, and editorial processes should be considered when applying the findings elsewhere.

Abstract

Peer review is an important part of science, aimed at providing expert and objective assessment of a manuscript. Because of many factors, including time constraints, unique expertise needs, and deference, many journals ask authors to suggest peer reviewers for their own manuscript. Previous researchers have found differing effects about this practice that might be inconclusive due to sample sizes. In this article, we analyze the association between author-suggested reviewers and review invitation, review scores, acceptance rates, and subjective review quality using a large dataset of close to 8K manuscripts from 46K authors and 21K reviewers from the journal PLOS ONE’s Neuroscience section. We found that all-author-suggested review panels increase the chances of acceptance by 20 percent points vs all-editor-suggested panels while agreeing to review less often. While PLOS ONE has since ended the practice of asking for suggested reviewers, many others still use them and perhaps should consider the results presented here.

Abstract from the original work, reproduced under its Creative Commons license. The overview above summarizes the study.

Cite this work

D E Acuna, M Teplitskiy, J. Evans, K. Kording (2022). Author-suggested reviewers rate manuscripts much more favorably: A cross-sectional analysis of the neuroscience section of PLOS ONE. PLOS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0273994

@article{acuna2022,
  title = {Author-suggested reviewers rate manuscripts much more favorably: A cross-sectional analysis of the neuroscience section of PLOS ONE},
  author = {Acuna, D E and Teplitskiy, M and Evans, J. and Kording, K.},
  year = {2022},
  publication_date = {2022-12-12},
  journal = {PLOS ONE},
  doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0273994},
  url = {https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0273994}
}