And now, evidence based editing

BMJ 1995;311:826 (30 September)

Editorials

And now, evidence based editing

The third congress on peer review will be in Prague in September1997

Peer review is slow, expensive, prone to bias, corruptible,and possibly anti-innovatory.¹ Yet it is central not only tothe production of scientific journals but to all of science.Like democracy it may be an imperfect process, but it is betterthan the alternatives.² ³ ⁴ Or is it? Just as nobody has conducteda randomised controlled trial of cervical screening againstplacebo so nobody has done such a trial of peer review. Sucha trial would probably now be impossible--as it is deemed tobe for cervical screening--but editors and others are beginningto research the process of peer review.⁴ ⁵ ⁶ Most questionsabout the peer review process cannot yet be answered on thebasis of evidence, but some can: for instance, we have evidencethat blinding reviewers to the identity of authors leads tothem to produce better . . . [Full text of this article]