Peer Review Week provides an opportunity to recognize the volunteer reviewers whose time and expertise are essential to the scientific publishing process. To mark the occasion, AMS asked recipients of the AMS Editor’s Award for excellence in reviewing to share what they’ve learned about providing rigorous, constructive, and timely reviews.
One lesson in their responses rose to the top: a good review isn’t simply about finding what’s wrong with a paper. It’s about helping make the science stronger.
Start with the big picture
Experienced reviewers often begin by resisting the temptation to focus immediately on individual sentences, figures, or typos.
Victor Gensini says he starts by considering the manuscript’s overall scientific story. “What is the central contribution, is the evidence sufficient to support the conclusions, and what would most improve the paper?” Gensini explains. “I then return for a more detailed examination of the methods, analysis, figures, and interpretation.”
Gleb Panteleev uses a similar three-step approach: first understanding the manuscript as a whole, then identifying the most important scientific issues, and finally organizing his comments into major and minor concerns. “This three-pass approach,” he says, “allows me to be thorough without trying to evaluate every aspect of the manuscript and write the review at the same time.”
For many reviewers, experience has brought a shift away from trying to identify every possible flaw. Ariel Cohen says he has learned that “the most effective reviews focus on the issues that will have the greatest impact on the quality, clarity, and usefulness of the final paper.”
Patricia Parker notes a similar shift. “As an early-career reviewer, I tended to include more minor comments to pad my reviews because I was not as confident in my bigger-picture comments and opinions,” she says. “Experience has allowed me to more quickly comprehend the main points, identify potential areas of improvement, and state those clearly, confidently, and respectfully.”
Make criticism constructive
The most effective reviews don’t just point out problems; they explain why those problems matter and, when possible, suggest a way forward.
“The most valuable reviews are not simply lists of problems,” Gensini says. “They help the authors see how the manuscript could become stronger.” Explaining why an issue matters and suggesting a constructive way to address it can transform a review “from a gatekeeping exercise into a form of scientific collaboration and mentorship.”
Peter Finocchio similarly emphasizes the importance of recognizing what is working. “One thing I always strive to do as a reviewer is to highlight the strengths of a manuscript in the preamble to my review,” he says. “This helps to establish up front that I see value in this work even if it could be improved. I’ve also found that authors respond best when I explain why I am recommending a change (e.g., to improve clarity or to provide stronger evidence to support a claim).
Antonios Mamalakis describes the reviewer as more than an evaluator. “A reviewer is not simply an agent of criticism,” he notes. “A reviewer is also a facilitator, helping authors make the largest and most accurate scientific claim that their work can support.”
That perspective can mean giving authors the benefit of the doubt and making an effort to understand what they are trying to communicate before passing judgment. As Mamalakis puts it, “Good reviewing means giving the authors the benefit of the doubt and making the effort to understand and improve their work before making a decision about it.”
Know when to say no
Being a good reviewer also means recognizing when you shouldn’t accept an assignment.
Daniel Cecil has learned to decline many review requests, generally accepting those that match his expertise or that he finds genuinely interesting. “What has changed is my willingness to decline a review request,” he says. “Early in my career, I almost felt an obligation to accept every request. Maybe that is good early in the career, but it is hard to sustain.”
Parker is similarly selective, making sure she has the expertise and time necessary to provide a fair and thorough review. Once she accepts an assignment, she schedules time for it and isn’t afraid to ask for an extension. “I will gladly request an extension of a couple of days to give a thorough review,” she says, “rather than submitting a rushed, subpar one by the deadline.”
For Simon Pfreundschuh, setting a defined amount of time for each review helps maintain that focus. “The limited time slot helps me focus on what really matters,” he says, “namely, to provide a fair review focused on scientific integrity.”
And for Mamalakis, one strategy is simple: “Be strategic about which papers you agree to review!” He tends to accept papers he would want to read anyway, which changes the experience from an obligation into an opportunity to learn and contribute.
Reviewers are learners, too
Peer review doesn’t just improve manuscripts. It can improve the people doing the reviewing.
Pfreundschuh says reviewing has helped him become a better scientific writer. “Learning what I react to in other author’s papers helped me reflect on my own work and how I want to move it forward.”
Jana Houser takes that even further. “Reviewing papers has, hands down, made me a better scientist, across the board,” she says. The experience has improved her writing, helped her recognize good and bad scientific practices, and made her a better mentor by exposing her to examples of both strong and weak research execution and communication.
Reviewing can also change how scientists approach their own manuscripts. Bowen Zhou recalls being a young researcher who spent an entire week reviewing a dense paper because he was afraid of asking a question that might seem obvious. His mentor helped him understand that not understanding everything is part of the process and that asking an author to explain something is perfectly legitimate.
“I guess that’s what peer review means,” Zhou says. “I don’t have to understand everything about the paper to start the review. It was more like a meaningful conversation between the reviewer and the author.”
That review ultimately taught Zhou new skills he would not otherwise have encountered, and he found it rewarding to see that his questions and comments helped the authors.
What about AI?
As AI tools become more common, reviewers are also considering where they fit into the process. Under AMS’s ethical policies, AI tools may be used to edit review comments for language and clarity, but the scientific assessment remains the reviewer’s responsibility. Basic review confidentiality also applies: reviewers cannot upload a manuscript to an AI tool, as doing so would breach confidentiality.
Some award recipients use AI or other language tools to help make their comments clearer and more concise. Others do not use AI at all.
Pfreundschuh says AI can be “an immense help for formulating the final review text,” particularly for non-native English speakers. But he emphasizes that the final review must reflect his own assessment.
Mamalakis agrees that AI can have a role in editing, but draws a clear line between language and scientific judgment. “Current models cannot independently and reliably assess the scientific context, importance, rigor, and novelty” of a submitted work in the way an expert reviewer can, he says. “Those judgments should therefore remain the responsibility of human reviewers.”
Others simply prefer not to use it. “Call me old fashioned,” Zhou says, “but I have not used any AI tools for reviewing so far, and I do not intend to do so.”
The distinction is important: technology may assist with how a review is communicated, but the expertise and judgment behind the review remain human.
The work behind the work
Peer review is one of the ways scientists contribute to work beyond their own research. It gives researchers an opportunity to bring their expertise to another scientist’s work, ask questions, identify opportunities to strengthen the science, and help shape research that will ultimately reach a broader community.
For the reviewers recognized by the AMS Editor’s Award, that contribution is also a form of service and one that continues to teach them along the way.
Their experiences point to a common approach: take the time to understand the science, focus on what matters most, offer comments that help authors move the work forward, and approach each review with curiosity and care.
As Veljko Petkovic puts it, “Simply listing flaws, or handing the authors a wish list, should never be a reviewer’s goal.” Instead, reviewers should make the effort to understand what authors set out to do and what may have prevented them from getting there or from clearly communicating that they did.
Keith Sherburn sees that collective effort as part of how science advances. “The diversity of perspectives offered in peer review collectively strengthens our contributions and accelerates our progress of understanding as a community,” he says. “We are all better together.”
And Mamalakis offers perhaps the simplest description of all: “Peer review is the silent work of science.”
During Peer Review Week, AMS recognizes the reviewers who dedicate their time, expertise, and judgment to that work.
Find out more about AMS peer review at the Peer Review Week webpage.
