Peer Observation Review Form: Fill & Download for Free

Well, OK. As a scientist, this is something that I do a lot. It is a necessary part of the scientific process. First, I try to start with an open mind. I put on my impartial judge hat and try to put aside any preconceived ideas. I owe that to the writer and to the process. This is not about me.I read the abstract first of all. This is a synopsis of the study and it sets up my expectations of what I should find. At this point I don’t read it critically; I do that at the end. Now I just want a road map for the rest of the paper.Now, I just read through the paper section by section as presented. If the writer has done a good job, it will logically lead me through the study and answer my questions. What is this study about? Why is it important? On what significant prior findings is it based? (Introduction). What did you do? And why did you do it that way? What are your data? (Data and Methods) What did you observe? (Results) What did you conclude and why do you think that? (Discussion)As I read, I am constantly asking myself several questions. Does that make sense? Does this statement follow from what has been given? If the study is well done and written, this logical chain is intact. If there are inconsistencies or breaks in the chain, my skepticism is activated and I try to figure out the problem. Then I must decide whether the problem is one that is problematic for the study outcome (perhaps an interpretation I don’t agree with) or just poor presentation (inconsistencies, poor writing). The latter can be fixed by rewriting.The journal review form will ask questions, several of which I list here. Is this new and appropriate for the journal? Is the manuscript acceptable for publication? If it needs revisions, at what scale (none, minor rewriting, major rewriting)? Are the figures acceptable and are all needed? Does the manuscript contain unnecessary material or does it need to be reduced or augmented in length? Is it properly referenced?If you write a manuscript and it is reviewed, then it will be criticized. That is the job of the reviewer. I don’t like criticism and doubt that anybody does, but the criticism, if I take it to heart and act on it, makes my manuscript better. Some of my best papers were rejected several times, causing me to refocus and rewrite to make my arguments clearer. You don’t have to agree with every reviewer comment and you can dismiss some reviewer critique, but you have to convince the editor of your rationale. It comes across much better if you accept and remedy the critique.As a writer, you can help yourself by doing a better job of preparing your manuscript. If you are sloppy, perhaps you left out references or your use of spelling, reference style, and abbreviations is inconsistent, then I have to question how carefully the study is done. If you cite figures that aren’t there or you say this figure shows something but I can’t find the something, I suspect that you were sloppy. If you throw your text in a blender and I find introduction mixed in other sections, or methods in the results section, or discussion in other sections, then I think you didn’t take the time to write a clear manuscript. Remember that your reviewer is doing this review in his or her copious spare time as a volunteer assistant, then you will try to make the job easier with a better manuscript. Being human, it is difficult not to become annoyed when a writer wastes your time with a poorly written, poorly conceived, or opaque manuscript. So my recommendation to a writer is to edit and rewrite repeatedly. Ask colleagues to review the manuscript. Rinse and repeat. The better the manuscript going out the door, the better the reception.

If you BELIEVE in science you are doing it wrong.Science is to be learned and understood.When you have data you don't need faith.Why does it work?Why is it the best way to explain phenomena?Excellent question.The answer is scientific method.Here are its steps:Develop a question you would like to resolve through scientific research.Make observations by gathering information through background research and describing the phenomenon you're investigating.Form a hypothesis. This is an explanation of how the phenomenon operates. It can be used to predict future observations.Test your hypothesis by performing experiments and collecting data.Analyze your data to see if it confirms your prediction.Interpret the data and draw conclusions that may serve as a starting point for a new hypothesis. You should be able to confirm whether or not your original hypothesis was correct.Publish and communicate your results.Everything must be repeatable, up for peer review and tested without bias.If results attest to the assumption being wrong, desert the assumption.A scientific theory (like gravity) summarizes a hypothesis or group of hypotheses that have been supported with repeated testing. If enough evidence accumulates to support a hypothesis, it moves to the next step—known as a theory— in the scientific method explained above, and becomes accepted as a valid explanation of a phenomenon.The theory presented must provide the method which led to its becoming for scrutiny and criticism.This theory will FOREVER be challenged and confronted by all new relevant findings and will only remain relevant as an explanation to the phenomena it explains, if such new finding do not contradict it.This methodology makes bias and wishful thinking... well.. irrelevant to the conclusion.Hope this helps.

Mythological religious belief.Every religion is founded on a lot of mythological stories with different levels of significance. This is just one of those stories, and there is no evidence that it happened.But many Muslims refuse to stop at treating it as an article of faith and want to claim scientific evidence to prove that Islam is the true religion.The most hilarious attempt at hijacking scientific validity came after NASA images showing some rifts on the lunar surface came out[1]OMG evidence that the moon has been split in two!Not.This is just Rima Ariadaeus,[2] one of the many Rimae[3] (channel-like long depressions) on the lunar surface. It is only 300km long and is in no way evidence of the moon being split in two. To top it all, these features are billions of years old![4] Not going to claim that it formed from a 1400-year old miracle now, are you?But many Muslim websites kept promoting the claim and I have even had the misfortune of being at the receiving end of such a share. NASA scientist Brad Bailey had a good to-the-point response to such claims:[5]My recommendation is to not believe everything you read on the internet. Peer-reviewed papers are the only scientifically valid sources of information out there. No current scientific evidence reports that the Moon was split into two (or more) parts and then reassembled at any point in the past.Wikipedia also talks about it in the context of the religious belief.[6]There is also a lot of local folklore about people who supposedly saw the event (and converted to Islam), developed long after their lives. For example, in Kerala where I come from, the folklore is that the first Muslim convert was a king who saw the miracle.[7] But there is no historical evidence for such claims, and the many civilizations around the world who were advanced in observational astronomy made no record of such a monumental event either. Everything puts this in the realm of religious mythology.I hope that religious people everywhere would learn to keep science separate from religion. You can keep your religious beliefs and harmless practices, but please stop using pseudoscience to justify them. It only makes the entire community look ridiculous.PS: My answers against pseudoscience of Islamic and other flavours are aggregated here.Footnotes[1] File:Rima Ariadaeus-1.jpg[2] Rima Ariadaeus - Wikipedia[3] Rille - Wikipedia[4] Linear Rille[5] Evidence of the moon having been split in two[6] Splitting of the moon - Wikipedia[7] Legend of Cheraman Perumals - Wikipedia