Mastering the scientific peer review process: tips for young authors from a young senior editor

Abstract

Are you a student at a higher institution or an early-career researcher who is striving to understand and master the peer review process so to increase the odds of getting a paper published in the Journal of Forestry Research or another reputable, peer-reviewed, scientific journal? In this paper, a young, senior editor provides a handbook of the peer review process based on his decadal experience in scientific publishing. He covers major information you need to know during the entire process, from selecting journals to completing the proofing of your accepted paper. He introduces key points for consideration, such as avoidance of predatory journals, dubious research practices and ethics, interaction with peers, reviewers, and editors, and the pursuit of aretê. Finally, he points out some common statistical errors and misconceptions, such as P hacking and incorrect effect size inference. He hopes that this paper will enhance your understanding and knowledge of the peer-review process.

Temporal perspective on the gender-related differences in online learning behaviour

“…Even though the temporal perspective on course module activity and assignment submission (cluster 2) did not show differences between the male and female students, there were temporal differences in terms of the online learning behavior activities of clusters 1 and 3 (viewing achievement reports and the list of peers; forum interaction; see Figures 4 and 6). This is basically consistent with the findings in one prior study in China by Authors (2021). Moreover, this study went one step further than Authors (2021) and indicated that as the learning process progressed, females were more active than males, particularly for the activities involving viewed achievement and peers and forum interaction.…”

“…Zhai et al (2018) found that male students favor procedure feedback and female students prefer conclusive assessments in the context of online self-regulated learning. Authors (2021) found a gendered-related difference in Chinese students' transitional patterns in online learning behaviors.…”

“…Therefore, this study focuses on analyzing the gender-related difference in students' online learning behavioral patterns based on LSA and temporal log data analysis (TLDA). These methods provide different perspectives on the temporality of learning: order of events in a short temporal context (LSA) and characteristics of events over time in a long temporal context (TLDA, Lämsä et al, 2020;2021). Specifically, this study answers the following Research Questions (RQs).…”

Engaging in scientific peer review: tips for young reviewers

“…As explained in my previous paper (Agathokleous 2022), aretê is the ethical/moral excellence or supremacy (Yiaslas 2019). Keep this in mind while serving as a reviewer.…”

“…In a previous paper, I have analyzed the peer-review process for beginner authors (Agathokleous 2022). If you have published your first article in the Journal of Forestry Research or Project funding:The author acknowledges support from The Startup Foundation for Introducing Talent of Nanjing University of Information Science &Technology (NUIST), Nanjing, China (Grant No.…”