Reader Comments

Post a new comment on this article

Publishing reviewers comments

Posted by Duncan_Hull on 31 Mar 2008 at 11:17 GMT

I think publishing reviewers comments would be a great step forward, provided you can get the consent of both the author and reviewer. If reviews were less anonymous, they might be better quality (people usually think twice before putting their name to something) - and add significant value to the published paper.

RE: Publishing reviewers comments

MCorpas replied to Duncan_Hull on 31 Mar 2008 at 15:50 GMT

I believe that it might be good in terms of learning to have editors comments available; however, the result of this could not always be positive for science.

Many reviewers might not dare say freely what they believe about a paper if they know it is going to be published as well. After all sometimes is not hard to guess your reviewer by the comments s/he makes and might be more complacent about the review. This could end up in a generalised lowering of standards.