In our March "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:
When I submitted a paper to BJHP last Fall, the paper got rejected after receiving an initial review before being sent out for peer review. I got some helpful feedback from the initial reviewer (who isn't the editor). I wonder if there are other journals that adopt this practice of sending submissions for an initial review before the peer review.
Another reader submitted the following reply:
I am puzzled … why do you say it was not peer reviewed? If someone other than the editor looked at the paper then it was peer reviewed. Am I missing something? Sometimes journals do give authors decisions with only ONE referee's report – in fact, I am a quick reviewer, and I have noticed that some of the journals I have reviewed for have made decisions on the basis of my report only (and the editor's judgment). If one report contains enough information to form a sound judgment, then an editor may choose to reject the paper on that basis (especially if they have not managed to secure a second referee).
As a matter of fact, I think this second commenter is missing something. In the past year or so, I have begun to receive a kind of referee request that I had never received before: requests by journals to give an "initial review" of a submission to determine whether the paper should be sent out to referees for a full review. In these requests (which I have received from two or three different journals), I am explicitly asked to decide not whether the paper should be published, but rather whether it should be sent to referees. Further, it's noted that in making a recommendation, I may elect to provide comments but that I don't need to: all the journal wants is to know whether to send the paper to referees.
So, it seems, some journals may be adopting a new practice that functions something like "desk review" by journal editors. For my part, I can't help but wonder whether this practice may be a result of journals being overwhelmed with new submissions (see here), one aim being to provide quicker verdicts for papers.
Do any readers have the "inside scoop" on what's going on here? Also, what do readers think of this practice, as described above? I guess I sort of find something attractive about it, as it may more widely distribute the "gatekeeping" function of desk review at journals beyond just a few editors. On the other hand, it might incentivize more rejections without comments. But again, this is mostly just speculation, as I'm not entirely sure how these initial reviews function (do editors also read the paper?). Anyway, I'm genuinely curious!
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