Nyssa Silbiger still recalls the rude remark that reviewer three made in 2014 about her first paper describing her PhD research. “The phrases I have so far avoided using in this review are, ‘lipstick on a pig’, and ‘bullshit baffles brains’,” they wrote.
To Silbiger, a marine biologist at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, the words cut deep. The critique not only made it difficult to work out how she should revise her manuscript on the bioerosion of coral reefs, but also led her to question her abilities and whether she belonged in science at all. “As a twenty-something student, that can have a really big impact on your ability not only to conduct science, but your whole future career,” says Silbiger, who now leads her own marine-ecology group at the university.
Can Germany rein in its academic bullying problem?
Peer review is supposed to be critical. But too often, Silbiger says, reviewer feedback crosses the line into an unprofessional realm. Such unacceptable behaviours range from outright bullying of other scientists and personal comments about the authors to mean-spirited or unhelpful remarks without constructive, evidence-based criticism. In 2019, Silbiger and Amber Stubler, a marine ecologist at Occidental College in Los Angeles, California, conducted a survey of roughly 1,100 scientists. Some 58% of respondents reported that they had encountered unprofessional peer-review comments1. In particular, women, non-binary scientists and people of colour said that the experience had harmed their confidence and productivity and delayed their career advancement.
Attention to the issue has grown ever since and, fortunately, so have ways to address it. Journals, editors and scientific organizations have begun to explore a range of solutions to prevent bullying during the peer-review process and to hold mean-spirited reviewers accountable. Many scientists are also taking matters into their own hands by pushing back on unprofessional reviews.
“There is progress being made, just in small increments and in different flavours,” says Emma Dunne, a palaeobiologist at the Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen–Nuremberg in Germany, and the ethics editor of the journal Historical Biology. “I would like to think that things can only get better.”
Why do nasty peer reviews happen?
However negatively a referee views a study, there’s always a polite, evidence-based way to express criticism, says Sally Thomas, the Palaeontological Association’s publications officer. During the organization’s peer-review workshop for early-career researchers, she stresses the importance of being careful with language (see ‘Don’t do it’). “Always put yourself in the shoes of the author,” says Thomas, who is based in Cambridge, UK. Start by writing something positive, she says, “and then lay out what is not so good about the work in a totally unemotional and logical way”.
Yet research indicates that some scientists worry that being too nice will allow poor-quality studies to be published or think that authors deserve harsh comments for submitting substandard work2. Other times, overly harsh reviews might be intended to hinder or delay the publication of papers by competing laboratory groups. Personal snipes at study authors are also widespread, including ones targeting early-career scientists, women and people of colour, notes palaeontologist Farid Saleh at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. He recalls how a reviewer once singled him and a female co-author out on a paper with 12 other authors, “calling us disingenuous, not real scientists, and making other personal attacks”. Remarks that disparage the authors’ English-language skills without constructive feedback are unprofessional and can exacerbate the existing challenges that individuals whose primary language is not English face in scientific publishing, adds Valeria Ramírez Castañeda, a biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who has studied such challenges3.
Not all rude-seeming reviews are intentional, because cultural attitudes to directness vary. A blunt comment from one scientist might be perceived as rude by researchers who are used to more diplomatic language, Ramírez Castañeda says. Reviews by scientists who lack the skills or experience to give nuanced feedback, senior researchers accustomed to the more-adversarial academic cultures of the past and scientists who don’t have the time to thoughtfully consider a paper might seem harsher than intended.
What authors can do
Avoiding problematic peer reviews starts by considering which journal to submit to and what its peer-review practices are. Specialists agree that the most common form of peer review — single-anonymous, in which referee identities are concealed from the authors but not vice versa — can promote unprofessional comments by giving reviewers anonymity.
Valeria Ramírez Castañeda says peer reviewers shouldn’t penalize a lack of English fluency.Credit: Valeria Ramírez Castañeda
Fortunately, many journals have begun to offer other kinds of peer review — such as double-anonymous review, in which both author and reviewer identities are concealed. This can help to prevent problematic comments and review-related rejections when reviewers are biased against authors from some demographics or nations. IOP Publishing (IOPP), a publisher of physical-science journals in Bristol, UK, has found few differences in overall rejection rates for papers with double-anonymous reviews compared with single-anonymous ones. However, an internal analysis of 2024 data covering around 28,000 papers suggests that some groups might benefit from double-anonymous reviews. Scientists in Africa were 4% more likely to have their paper accepted when the authors chose to be anonymous during the peer-review stage. But there is no clear trend for women and non-binary authors, says Laura Feetham-Walker, IOPP’s reviewer-engagement manager. And, in some scientific fields, “it’s not that challenging [for a reviewer] to identify who the senior authors are on any paper”, even if they are anonymized, notes Simon Harold, chief editor of Nature Ecology & Evolution in London. (Nature’s Careers team is independent of the journal’s publisher, Springer Nature, which also publishes Nature Ecology & Evolution and other Nature Portfolio journals.)
Many journals, including the BMJ, Nature and some of the other Nature Portfolio journals (see go.nature.com/4nvd9zs), also offer open, or transparent, peer review. In this case, the reviews — and sometimes the referees’ identities — are published with the paper. Although this practice can encourage more-considerate behaviour, early-career scientists often worry about retaliation when critically reviewing papers from more-senior or influential authors. The sense of being able to speak freely with anonymity “is why I think the anonymous peer-review system is the default”, Harold adds.
Should I tell anyone that I suspect misconduct in a paper I’m reviewing?
When biologist Mayank Chugh was pursuing a master’s degree, members of his lab group in India received harsh feedback and demoralizing comments about their written English in some of their papers. So, they decided to submit his first paper to the journal eLife. The journal has both a consultative review process — in which editors and reviewers discuss the manuscript together and share consolidated feedback with the authors — and a policy to publish reviews and encourage reviewers to disclose their names. “We trusted that process over what we had experienced before,” says Chugh, who is now at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and a member of eLife’s early-career advisory group. Morteza Mahmoudi, a nanoscientist and anti-bullying researcher at Michigan State University in East Lansing, takes further steps when he anticipates an unproductive peer-review process — something he has often experienced with papers that challenge commercially important assumptions in his field. He now asks editors to exclude certain researchers from reviewing — an option that many journals provide. In these cases, “I don’t get those unnecessary delays in the process or harsh comments”, says Mahmoudi.
After receiving a reviewer’s report, if authors aren’t sure whether the language is problematic, Feetham-Walker recommends that the authors ask themselves: “Has this comment helped me to improve my paper, or has it just undermined my confidence?” Importantly, peer review should critique only the science, she adds. “The main defining factor of unprofessional comments is that they are personal.” If still in doubt, Mahmoudi advises authors to consult their colleagues.
It’s important to remember that harsh reviews can help authors to improve their paper, notes Mirvat Alasnag, an interventional cardiologist at King Fahad Armed Forces Hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. “If it’s not what you wanted to hear, leave the noise behind, but try as hard as you can to look at the comments and see if they’re valuable,” she says.
However, in the case of especially egregious comments, she and others recommend flagging the problematic behaviour to the manuscript-handling editor (see ‘How to avoid — and push back on — peer review bullying’). Silbiger suggests that authors write an e-mail thanking the editor and reviewer for the critical appraisal and noting that they will take the suggestions into consideration. Then, they should detail the comments they felt were unethical and unprofessional and ask that those comments be removed from the review process — and possibly flagged to the reviewer as being unhelpful.
After Silbiger revised her manuscript in 2014 — and reviewer three responded with further unprofessional comments — her PhD supervisor wrote to the journal’s chief editor. After explaining how the team had addressed the valid criticisms and pointing out the unprofessional remarks that couldn’t be addressed, she asked the chief editor to decide whether to accept or reject the paper. The paper was ultimately published and has been cited 88 times. “If you’re junior, sometimes it helps to have your senior author be the one to write the letter,” Silbiger says.
