This document provides guidance for writing effective peer reviews that can help editors and authors. It emphasizes that reviewing is an important scientific duty and responsibility shared between editors and reviewers. The document outlines steps reviewers should take, including diagnosing issues with the manuscript, providing treatment by suggesting ways to improve the manuscript through revisions, and drafting a review report that clearly communicates the diagnosis and suggested revisions. It advises reviewers to avoid being rude or imposing unnecessary demands and instead focus on providing constructive feedback to strengthen the manuscript.

2. How to write an effective review (and help
editors and authors)
Rik Lories, MD PhD – Associate Editor OAC
Skeletal Biology and Engineering Research Centre, KU Leuven
Division of Rheumatology, University Hospitals Leuven

3. Rik Lories, MD PhD
Professor of Experimental Rheumatology
Director of the Laboratory of Tissue Homeostasis and Disease
KU Leuven, Skeletal Biology and Engineering Research Centre and University
Hospitals Leuven, Division of Rheumatology
Disclosure Information
• Leuven Research and Development, the technology transfer office of KU Leuven
has received consultancy and speakers fees, and research grants on behalf of the
presenter from: Abbvie, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Celgene, Eli-Lilly, Galapagos,
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4. ER DOC

5. TRIAGE
• Shared responsibility between editors and reviewers
• % of manuscripts > instant reject
• % of manuscripts > strong suggestion to reject by reviewers

6. SHOULD I REVIEW THIS PAPER?

7. SHOULD I REVIEW?
• Reviewing will make you a better scientist and a better author
o Learn from others
o Discuss with your supervisor / lab head
• Reviewing is a scientific duty
o Reviewers are not your enemy – they are fellow scientists that will improve
your manuscripts too
o Being invited to review is a form of recognition
• You can be rewarded for reviewing
o Publons – Mendeley
o Add it to your CV – win the OAC award

8. DIAGNOSE
• Read the abstract (again)
o Write down your questions based on the abstract
• What kind of data do I expect to see?
• What would convince me that the conclusion is correct?
• To which things/issues should I pay attention?
• Read the paper and the figures (obviously)
o Identify (eventual) major problems
o Check your expectations
o Define your first diagnosis/decision
• reject ( = no conceivable treatment available)
• revise (= treat with surgery or band-aid)
• accept (? does it ever happen ?)

9. TREAT – IMPROVE THE MANUSCRIPT
• Read the paper again and focus on the details
• Title: is it appropriate – does it convey the main message?
• Introduction:
o State of the art literature
o Appropriate recognition of earlier work?
• Methods
o Are these clear? Could you theoretically repeat the experiment?
o Pay attention to the stat method description

10. TREAT – IMPROVE THE MANUSCRIPT
• Results
o Is the question clear? Does the experiment answer the question?
o Can you identify appropriate controls?
o Data presentation: clear? essential? sufficient?
o Data analysis: see the advise of our statistical editors!
o Be critical about data not shown
• Discussion
o Does it have to be that long/short?

11. DRAFT YOUR REPORT
• To the Editor:
o Make a clear statement: I suggest to reject / a major revision because …
o Outline your main “diagnosis”
o Outline what you really want to see in a revised version
• To the Authors:
o Short summary – they will be sure you read the paper!
o Main points but without ”decision”
• Additional controls, a rescue experiment is suggested, would make the message more
convincing …
• Figures are not sufficiently clear ….
o Specific points, referring to pages, figures etc…

12. AVOID
• To be rude, patronizing, competitive, bad …
o Editors do not like hawks or doves – we just need good and fair reviews
o Consider yourself the paper doc
• Do not ask for additional experiments because you can come up with some
o Any additional work should clearly improve the paper
o However, do encourage comprehensive studies!
• Do not impose specific techniques or analyses – let the authors consider as it is
their paper
• Respect author’s choices and be aware that there is also a statistical review in
OAC.