if it’s the latter, where do you look for the appropriate response from their peers? If the former, how do professionals get access to pre-published works to critique them?
In: Mathematics
“Published” papers have been reviewed by peers chosen by the journal as knowledgeable sources. It’s not like “upvotes” on reddit, where anybody who reviews your paper and agrees with it counts as a peer reviewer.
“Pre-Publication” papers are also available. These are changed by the time they get published, so you can’t really cite them, but they point out interesting opportunities for collaboration and other new ideas to consider.
Peer review is a process where the article is critiqued before publication.
Journal editors will usually reach out to people to have them review papers in the relevant fields, or sometimes if it’s a more niche field they can ask the authors to provide the names of independent reviewers to look over the paper.
The basic process is the authors submit the manuscript -> the editor checks for basic formatting errors and sends it back for correction if errors are present -> the editor sends it to the reviewers -> the reviewers provide the editor with comments as well as a recommendation of accept/accept with revisions/reject -> the authors submit a revised version (if not outright rejected) -> publication. This can be a months long process from submission to publication.
This varies a lot by field and has even changed substantially in the last few years in a few fields.
In traditional peer review, articles are kept private until they are accepted by a journal. Authors submit articles to the journal which sends them out to an anonymous set of peer reviewers who are also supposed to keep them private. If the peer reviewers approve of the research, the journal accepts and publishes it.
In many fields, however, authors do not wait for publication to share their work. They may distribute it as a “preprint” or “working paper” either just within their field or to the whole internet with a press release and everything. They (typically) still seek publication at academic journals.
This looser approach to academic publication has pros and cons. Traditional peer review can significantly slow down the growth and dissemination of knowledge, and unscrupulous participants can use it as an opportunity to silence researchers they dislike or even steal their ideas. On the other hand, wide dissemination of academic work before peer review can lead to confusion (especially if the authors change the paper between initial working papers and the final published version) and sometimes allows the release and wide adoption of work that peer reviewers ultimately find to be legitimately flawed.
A good example is the big shift in epidemiological studies during COVID-19, which were routinely released as preprints rather than waiting for publication. This allowed crucial research to be distributed to policymakers while it was still relevant, but it also contributed to significant confusion when papers disagreed and made it difficult to differentiate serious work from studies with major flaws.
When you submit a paper for publication, the journal sends copies to respected, established people in that field for review – typically professors at universities. They give feedback and recommend publication, or not. Some journals are known for publishing works that are not peer reviewed, *for* review (as opposed to journals that just publish garbage). The articles or studies are notated as being in the review process and anyone who is interested (and subscribed) can read and provide appropriate feedback.
When you submit to a journal, the editor decides if it’s a right fit for the journal. Then they send it to experts in the topic, who review it. Like, I will literally get a file via email.
The reviewer will make comments through an anonymous portal, usually with a recommendation such as “accept with revision.” The authors revise accordingly and submit for round 2.
Once it passes peer review, the article gets published for everyone to read.
If you want to read articles before peer review, you can find “pre-prints.” These are always free, so it’s also a good way to get around paywalls.
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