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Peer review can be a confusing process at times and so to help cut out all the jargon and make it as simple as possible, we have developed the ‘Peer Review Experts’ blog series. We’ll be bringing you top tips on a wide range of peer review subjects, straight from the experts; our very own peer-review team at F1000Research. This week, Jeniffer Jeyakumar, Senior Editorial Assistant at F1000Research  explains the process of re-reviewing. 

Peer review should be a collaborative process which involves the joint effort of both reviewers and authors working towards the goal of improving the overall quality of the paper. Re-reviewing begins when the authors of an article choose to revise their article and respond to the comments and questions in the peer review reports they have received on the first version of their paper.

If you are one of the reviewers who participated in the peer review on the previous version, the editorial team will be in touch with you once the new version is published to request that you re-review the revised version. At this point, you have the opportunity to provide your comments on the revised paper and see if the authors have appropriately addressed any concerns you had from the first version. The re-review process can go on for several revisions until both the reviewers and authors are satisfied that the paper is the best it can be. If you are contacted to re-review but are currently unable to do so, just let our editorial team know as soon as possible.

The process of re-reviewing 

As someone who has reviewed the article before, you are in the best position to review again as you can look at the revisions which are summarised in the Amendments box for your ease – and see whether your comments have been addressed. In order to facilitate this, at F1000Research we also encourage authors to leave a point-by-point response to your earlier report. You can also find a summary of the revisions made to the article at the end of your invite email. We hope that this makes it much quicker and easier to review again, and the authors would appreciate your feedback on whether they have addressed your comments satisfactorily.

When assigning an updated approval status (Approved, Approved with Reservations, or Not Approved), please use the same criteria as you did for the previous version, for example, whether the article is academically valid, reproducible, and that all the underlying data has been provided.

Next steps

Once you have assessed the revisions, you can submit your report online alongside an updated status using the same peer review system as previously. You will not be asked to re-answer the mandatory questions (although you can still use these to structure your updated report if you wish), as you have already previously fully reviewed the article. If you would prefer, you can also simply send our editorial team an email with a few comments to support the status you would like to assign.

Your updated report will be published alongside the revised article for the authors and readers to view your updated thoughts. As before, you can once again claim credit for your contribution to the peer review process as your name and affiliation will be published alongside your report! If you are interested in learning more about the importance of getting credit for your reviews and how to do this, check out our peer review expert guide on this subject.

We hope this guide helps to make the process of re-reviewing clearer and slightly easier. However, if you would like any more information please visit our reviewer guidelines.