Improving Manuscripts via Critical Review

class: center, middle, inverse, title-slide

.title[
# Improving Manuscripts via Critical Review
]
.author[
### Yue Jiang
]
.date[
### STA 583 / Workshop 3 / Spring 2025
]

---

### What is meant by "review"?

When we review a piece of work, we 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 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 good or worthy of publication!**

---

### A useful framework

.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>

---

### 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)?
]

---

### 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?
]

---

### 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?
]

---

### 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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