Guidance for Student BMJ reviewers

Student BMJ peer reviewers do not have to fill in standard appraisal forms. But we do ask all of them to consider this general guidance:

General points

The manuscript is a confidential document. Please do not discuss this even with the author.

Student BMJ now has a system of open peer review. This means that you will be asked to sign your report on any article we send you. It does not mean that authors should contact you directly; we will continue to ask them to direct any queries through us. Openness also means that we ask reviewers and authors to declare any competing interest that might relate to articles considered by Student BMJ.

As a reviewer you will be advising the editors, who make the final decision. We will let you know our decision. We will pass on your signed report to the author; please do not make any comments that you do not wish the author to see. Even if we do not accept an article we would like to pass on constructive comments that might help the author to improve it.

Please give detailed comments (with references, whenever possible) that will both help the editors to make a decision on the article and the authors to improve it. Do be courteous and constructive in these comments and "do as you would be done unto".

We suggest some points to consider below, but they are by no means an exhaustive checklist. Please use your discretion.

For all articles:

1) Is it relevant to medical students?
2) Is it relevant to an international audience?
3) Is the topic important?
4) Does the article read well and make sense?
5) Has a similar article been published in Student BMJ before? How does it compare? (search our website)

For education articles:

1) How can it be made more different and useful compared to a standard textbook chapter on the topic?
2) Was any part of the article not self-explanatory?
3) Are references up to date and relevant?
4) Are there any glaring omissions?

What we don't need

Comments on spelling and grammatical issues - our editing process will correct these.

Updated on 2nd August 2007 by Hugh Ip.