Journal Peer Review

Journal peer review is a remote and mysterious business for many research investigators. Four paradigms seem to capture much current opinion about peer review of scientific works submitted for journal publication: the sieve (peer review screens worthy from unworthy submissions), the switch (a persistent author can eventually get anything published, but peer review determines where), the smithy (papers are pounded into new and better shapes between the hammer of peer review and the anvil of editorial standards), and the shot in the dark (peer review is essentially unpredictable and unreproducible and hence, in effect, random). How well do these paradigms, . . .