Retrospective analysis of the quality of reports by author-suggested and non-author-suggested reviewers in journals operating on open or single-blind peer review models.

BMJ Open · 2015 · PMC4593157 · PMID 26423855

Europe PMC DOI

hedged sentences

0.2000

closest p · 4.0× alpha

0.2000

boldest claim

The sentences

did not reach statistical significancep=0.2not close (p > 0.1)

We found that key words such as ‘study design’, ‘guideline(s)’, ‘methodology’ and ‘data analysis’ occurred more frequently in reviewer reports for BMC Infectious Diseases compared to reviewer reports for BMC Microbiology , although it did not reach statistical significance (Fisher exact test, p=0.2).

also in 111,027 other papers

nominally significantno p-value reported

Quality of reports provided by author-suggested and non-author-suggested reviewers There is nominally significant evidence that non-author-suggested reviewers obtained higher scores on Q6 (how well the reviewer substantiated their comments) and Q7 (comments on the author’s interpretation of results) in BMC Infectious Diseases (open peer review) than the scores obtained by reviewers in BMC Microbiology (single-blind peer review).

also in 7,732 other papers

Quoted from the open-access full text in Europe PMC under the licence the publisher applied. The sentence is reproduced exactly as published; the emphasis is ours.