In praise of the referee

TL;DR

This paper emphasizes the crucial role of peer reviewers in scholarly publishing and explores potential reforms to better utilize their valuable contributions in the evolving publication landscape.

Contribution

It discusses innovative approaches to journal publication that leverage the efforts of peer reviewers more effectively.

Findings

Peer review significantly improves scientific papers.

Reforms can enhance the efficiency and fairness of peer review.

Valuable reviewer efforts should be better integrated into publication processes.

Abstract

There has been a lively debate in many fields, including statistics and related applied fields such as psychology and biomedical research, on possible reforms of the scholarly publishing system. Currently, referees contribute so much to improve scientific papers, both directly through constructive criticism and indirectly through the threat of rejection. We discuss ways in which new approaches to journal publication could continue to make use of the valuable efforts of peer reviewers.