Writing peer reviews

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# Writing peer reviews
### Yue Jiang
### Duke University / STA 583 / Spring 2024

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### What is peer review?

.vocab[Peer review] is the "expert assessment of submitted materials" (Walker)
and is used to help ensure that published materials are of high quality and
free from mistakes. It is used to maintain quality standards and credibility
in shared results. Many times peer review is blinded, which allows for more
honest and constructive comments.

Peer review is *not* limited to academic settings and journal submissions!

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### What is peer review?

Peer reviewers are tasked with providing a dispassionate evaluation of the work
in question - this review is often used for decision-making purposes on behalf
of a larger institution.

Useful peer reviews provide helpful feedback (both positive and negative) about
the relative strengths and weaknesses of the piece being reviewed.

Just because there are no mistakes doesn't necessarily mean that an article is
worthy of publication!

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### What is peer review?

.question[
Always keep the overall goal in mind: to provide an objective evaluation of the
work in question
]

<br>
<center><b>Describe - Evaluate - Suggest</b></center>

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### Evaluating the introduction

.question[
- Was/were the main goal(s) of the analysis easy to identify and appropriate for 
addressing the overall research problem?
- Was the rationale for the data analysis explained well?
- Did the manuscript describe the context/background of the work and its 
relation to existing literature?
- Were the variables (response and predictors) clearly identified and discussed?
- Did the manuscript explain how the data were collected and/or how they were 
derived?
- If provided, was any EDA helpful and informative in addressing the main 
goal(s)?
]

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### Evaluating the methodology

.question[
- Is the proposed analysis appropriate given the main goal(s) and dataset?
- Why was this particular methodology chosen over competing choices?
- Are the specific methods described in enough detail that the work could be 
replicated by other researchers without access to the original analysis code?
- Is it clear which approaches/models were used to evaluate specific goals?
- What assumptions are needed for the model(s), and how do you plan to assess 
whether they hold?
- What sensitivity analyses, if any, are planned, and how do they relate to your 
analysis approach?
]

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### Evaluating the results

.question[
- Were tables formatted cleanly and precisely? 
- Did visualizations follow good practices (e.g., clean axis labels, clear 
titles, appropriate figures given data types, etc.)?
- Did tables/figures refer to raw variable names, or were all references clearly 
made in context of the data?
- Were appropriate conventions re: formatting (e.g., an acceptable number of 
decimal places, table/figure captions, etc.) followed when displaying results?
- Was there an appropriate quantification of uncertainty of estimates?
- Were all results interpreted correctly?
]

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### Evaluating the discussion

.question[
- How did results address or fail to address the goal(s) of the manuscript?
- Did the manuscript provide clear, correct, and effective interpretation of 
the analysis results?
- Were all conclusions made directly supported by the results?
- Were there any issues with reliability or validity of the data?
]

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### Short peer review assignment

Due Friday, February 23. This is an individual assignment; you may not
communicate with anyone except the instructor regarding this assignment.

You are asked to write a brief formal peer review for Example 4. 
There is a **maximum 2 page limit**.

In grading this assignment, I will evaluate whether you are comprehensive in
identifying strengths and weaknesses found in the abstract and methods, and whether you
fully address all potential issues and propose reasonable solutions or next
steps.

Be *specific* in your commentary - it often helps to provide direct examples
from the text and
explain why a particular passage is strong or problematic.

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### Example 1

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### Example 1

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### Example 1

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### Example 2

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### Example 2

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### Example 2

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### Example 3

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### Example 3

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### Example 3

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### Example 4

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### Example 4

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### Example 4