Introduction

What to Include in Your Review

Cureus publishes all credible medical science applicable to the global healthcare community. Article credibility is determined by favorable commentary from trusted peer reviewers that includes substantial critical feedback confirming the absence of fatal scientific and methodological flaws. Positive reviews lacking in substantial constructive feedback will be closely scrutinized by our editors and may be rejected.

What to Avoid in Your Review

Do not include comments on spelling, grammar, punctuation, or formatting - this is not part of scientific peer review!

It is not appropriate to request the citation of your own work unless it is directly relevant. Any such request must include a disclosure that you are an author of the work. Additionally, this should be treated as a suggestion and should not have any bearing on your decision to recommend publication. Reviewers who do not follow these instructions will be permanently suspended from all peer review activity.

Checking Citations/References

It’s important to assess the citations and corresponding references during peer review. Keep the following in mind during your peer review:

• Are the cited sources relevant?
• Are the authors paraphrasing without citing the source?
• Does the article have too many or too few citations?
• Are the authors including irrelevant self-citations?
• Are the peer reviewers attempting to coerce the authors into citing their work?
• References should be complete and found online, with the exception of old books, etc.
• Secondary sources may only be cited in review articles.

The Cureus Peer Review System

All article submissions undergo a single-blind pre-publication peer review process in which reviewers know the identity of the authors, but authors do not know the identity of the reviewers.

In Cureus’ peer review process, reviewers are made anonymous through an automated system and are assigned a Greek letter for identification purposes (e.g. Reviewer Alpha) upon acceptance of the review invitation.

Two completed reviews from independent peer reviewers are required to satisfy peer review. Six peer reviewers will be invited to review each manuscript with additional peer reviewers added as needed. The Cureus peer review panel consists of relevant specialists who have either volunteered for the panel or previously published as an author in Cureus. To prevent a potential conflict of interest, peer reviewers with the same listed affiliation as one or more co-authors will not be invited to review your manuscript. Submitted peer reviews lacking in constructive feedback will be rejected by Cureus editors.

Once the article has entered the Cureus peer review system, three additional reviewers are automatically invited by Cureus every two days to ensure that the article completes peer review in a timely fashion.

Ending the Peer Review Period

When the requirements for Cureus peer review have been met, authors can choose to end the peer review period for all reviewers. If chosen, this option will expire all outstanding and in-progress reviews, except for any reviews that were started within the prior 48 hours.

These reviewers are given a maximum of 24 hours to submit their review. However, the review period may end sooner if the author revises and submits for publication approval.

Any reviewers who started their review in the prior 48 hours will be notified that they have a maximum of 24 hours remaining to submit their review.

Reviewer Keywords

Users who have published an article in Cureus or volunteered for our peer review panel are prompted to select up to 20 keywords to ensure they are matched with articles in their areas of interest and expertise.

When you start typing in the keyword field, a list of suggested keywords will be displayed so you can make your selection. (New keywords cannot be added at this time, but don’t worry — our list is quite extensive.)

As part of the peer review process, peer reviewers will then be matched with relevant articles based on their keywords.