Since my previous post reminded me of one of my PSU professors, Frank Dwyer, I figured I would make another post about a good lesson he taught me – How to peer review.
In his class, Dr. Dwyer gave each student a research article, that had been published in a well respected peer reviewed journal. My task: To also peer review the article. I took several days and read the article, wrote up my review, and turned it in. To my surprise, the following week everyone in the class got our reviews back with many red comments. The problem?
The research article we were given was terrible. Everything from the lit review, methods, results, and conclusion had major problems. It apparently, according to Dr. Dwyer, was published due to politics and wasnt peer reviewed properly but still made it into the journal – whether thats true or not I do not really know but that is the story I was told:) Anyway, all of our reviews basically told the same story: that the paper was great and should be accepted. Dr. Dwyer went through and showed us everything that was incorrect. I could not believe i didnt see all of it but I thought hey, this is peer reviewed, these journals and reviewers know more than I do, they are experts. Well lesson learned. Never accept anything that I read or see without careful analysis and evaluation. Overall it was a great lesson and has made me a good peer reviewer for my colleagues and my own work – at least I think so:)