How to review scientific articles (resource)
Referee Assignment: Each student will act as a referee and write reviews of assigned pre-published articles in animal communication that the instructor selects. You will treat the manuscripst as though they were submitted for publication and you are one of the anonymous referees. A guide to peer reviewing is provided on Moodle, and an example of a review is also provided. These reviews should be concise (3 pages double spaced; 11 point font; 1 inch margins) and must include:
(1) Your name, date, and the citation of the paper (also, all submitted assignments should be given a FILE NAME that is: YourLastName_Date_AssignmentTitle.docx).
(2) Your recommendation to the editor: (a) accept “as is”; (b) accept pending minor revision (small details); (c) accept pending major revision (additional data collection/analysis needed or major interpretation revisions needed); or (d) reject. This decision should follow logically from your evaluation. Your decision should reflect the quality (rigor, objectivity, replicability, internal and external validity) and creativity (often the creativity of the question or methodology) of the science.
(3) First paragraph: a brief summary of questions being asked and hypotheses being proposed and a brief summary of the major findings and interpretations. This section often (but not always) conveys something encouraging to the author that you think was very positive about the study.
(4) Your major concerns (e.g. new analyses to be performed; missing controls, concerns about the experimental data and their interpretation, etc)
(5) Your minor concerns (e.g. adjustments to the language of the text, additional citations, etc)
Items 3 and 4 will represent the bulk of your critique. I am looking for YOUR critical assessment. Remember, no study is perfect (aka all studies are flawed, sometimes these flaws are marginal, sometimes fatal) and identifying the weaknesses and strengths is an essential part of doing science. Naturally, these evaluations need to represent your own thinking and thus be written in your own words and not simply reiterate portions of the published work. Be specific and always justify your arguments (e.g. citing relevant literature). Submit on Moodle.
Note of using an LLM: I very strongly discourage the use of an LLM (e.g. ChatGPT) to do this assignment. You will learn a tiny fraction of the relevant skills if an LLM does it for you. If you use an LLM I encourage you to use it in the way you might use office hours -- after completing your complete draft review on your own, upload it to an LLM with the following specific prompt: "Please read the attached draft peer review of the attached manuscript and identify 3-5 relevant articles (primary and/or review) that I would benefit from reading as I prepare my final draft. Do not make suggestions for changes." Keep in mind that the exam for the class will be a live version of this type of assignment, so you want to use these assignments to maximize your learning before the exam.