Reviever Guidelines
Being asked to review an article can be a daunting task, especially if you’ve never done it before. I’ve written this guide on the basis of my own experiences over the last 6 months at InnovAiT.
Here are some questions that can be helpful to think about when reviewing an article. It makes our lives a lot easier if you can touch on these areas when submitting your review on Manuscript Central.
1. Does this article read well?
Is it well structured, do the sentences flow, are diagrams/boxes included appropriately.
2. Do you find it interesting?
Will GP Trainees find this useful? Not simply in terms of passing an examination, but also in terms of their daily clinical practice and thinking more widely about General Practice.
3. What works especially well in the article?
Sometimes it can be helpful to ask authors to expand on a particular theme, to give more weight to something that defines the piece. E.g. is this article really about the process of setting up an audit or more about diagnosing CKD?
4. What would you change about the article?
This can be a difficult question to answer. Sometimes it’s obvious, like they need to refer to the NICE Guidance if writing an article on how to manage HTN. Sometimes it’s subtler, when the style is overly informal and does not draw the reader in. Here is an overcooked example
• ‘In the first instance the GP Registrar consulted the practice primary healthcare team in part of a meeting to consult on the implications of hypertension and the attitudes of staff. ’
• ‘I talked to the practice team about hypertension at our weekly clinical meeting. ’
Before you review an article it is important to be familiar with the Instructions To Authors
Please be aware that these instructions apply to the longer clinical based articles. You may have been asked to review an opinion piece, e.g. A Trainees Views on the AKT/ an opinion piece about death. These will be shorter and may not completely adhere to the curriculum.
Making the decision
‘And now the moment we’ve all been waiting for…’
Accept
Excellent. You think this article is well suited for InnovAIT. You cannot see any significant weakness in the article/suggest any revisions.
Minor Revision
Generally an acceptable article but you feel there are one or two things for the author to think about. Perhaps they need to shorten it slightly/you would like to think about highlighting a particular aspect more.
Major Revision
This article needs significant re-working in order for it to be published e.g. it is poorly written, fails to cover some core areas, but you believe that there is hope… that if the changes were made it would be suitable for publication.
Reject
InnovAiT should not publish this article. For example, despite the claim to be an article about managing ‘Hypertension in General Practice’ the article is a 3000 piece about anion-exchange-diffusion reactions in rat liver mitochondria. Or perhaps this is the second time its been submitted and it is still poorly written and poorly structured.
What if I'm finding it really hard to make a decision?
Remember that most of time someone else will have reviewed the article too.
Once both reviews are back the Editors at InnovAiT will make a decision. Sometimes the decision can be very hard and we occasionally send articles around more widely to the editorial board. The more reviews you do the easier it becomes.
Most of all remember that the InnovAiT team, the authors, and all the GP Trainees in the UK appreciate the time you spend reviewing articles. Without the reviewers there would be no InnovAiT!
Patrick Hutt
Junior Editor
