The Importance of Ethical Peer-Review: Why Do We Ask Authors to Suggest Reviewers Anyway?

Abstract

an address is an authenticate reviewer or merely someone’s good Uncle Vinny. Alternatively, someone could set up countless addresses for themselves under various aliases to conduct their own peer-review. Certainly, that would more than likely result in some stellar comments about the high level of quality found in the manuscript. Second, if this does occur, it is absolutely prudent for the SAE, AE, and me to examine the reviewer’s comments and note if the comments are consistent with our observed quality of the given manuscript. In these instances, there is generally a radical discrepancy between the paucity of reviewer’s comments and the quality of the manuscript. Third, I encourage SAE and AE to use their own reviewers as well as one or two of the suggested reviewers. This approach provides inherent checks and balances to the peer-review process. So perhaps diligence during the peerreview process is the best means to protect Lipids from potentially publishing a paper that has been vetted through an illegitimate peer-review process. Is it truly fair to avoid using potential reviewers without an institutional e-mail address in our peer-review process? Certainly many of our colleagues in many countries around the world use Hotmail or Google addresses ethically, doing so because of the inherent reliability of these services, due to the limited IT resources at their institution, or for other prudent reasons. So, how do we distinguish between these individuals and those without scruples? Unfortunately, I do not see a mechanism that is not overly time consuming to make such a distinction. The peer-review process is already overly burdened, and adding additional checks and balances would not be an effective use of time and would place an additional burden on the peer-review process. Hence, the policy at Lipids will continue the requirement that authors submit the names of four potential reviewers, and the use of only what appear to be legitimate e-mail Are humans inherently evil, inherently good, or perhaps both? This is a question that philosophers have asked for many years and a question that intrigued one of my favorite philosophers, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He concluded many are both, but also for the most part people are good. As an Editor-in-Chief, I am often faced with the same dilemma as I ask, are all authors unethical? This is especially important as Lipids has for years required each submission to include the names and e-mail addresses of four potential reviewers. What does this ongoing requirement mean in the light of the proliferation of stories regarding “fake peer-review” [1–3]? First, I believe in the goodness of humanity and my experience has been that almost all authors are ethical and honest, but certainly there are some that are clearly dishonest and unethical. That said, how do I make this distinction, and how do our Senior Associate Editors (SAE) and Associate Editors (AE) make this distinction when it comes to the authors’ suggested peer reviewers? At Lipids, we use a variety of different mechanisms to protect the integrity of our peer-review process. First, for years I have encouraged our SAE and AE to only use reviewers with an identifiable address at an institution of higher education, research institute, or a well-known company. I have asked these individuals to refrain from using suggested names with an easily obtainable e-mail address, e.g. a Hotmail or a Google address. In the end, we really do not know if the individual at the other end of such