Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
Inquiry. 2022 Jan-Dec;59:469580221090393. doi: 10.1177/00469580221090393.
According to research lore, the second peer reviewer (Reviewer 2) is believed to rate research manuscripts more harshly than the other reviewers. The purpose of this study was to empirically investigate this common belief. We measured word count, positive phrases, negative phrases, question marks, and use of the word "please" in 2546 open peer reviews of 796 manuscripts published in the British Medical Journal. There was no difference in the content of peer reviews between Reviewer 2 and other reviewers for word count (630 vs 606, respectively, P = .16), negative phrases (8.7 vs 8.4, P = .29), positive phrases (4.2 vs 4.1, P = .10), question marks (4.8 vs 4.6, P = .26), and uses of "please" (1.0 vs 1.0, P = .86). In this study, Reviewer 2 provided reviews of equal sentiment to other reviewers, suggesting that popular beliefs surrounding Reviewer 2 may be unfounded.
根据研究传说，第二个同行评审员（评审员 2）被认为比其他评审员更严格地评价研究手稿。本研究的目的是实证调查这种普遍的信念。我们在英国医学杂志上发表的 796 篇手稿的 2546 篇公开同行评审中测量了字数、积极短语、消极短语、问号和“请”字的使用。评审员 2 和其他评审员的同行评审内容在字数（分别为 630 和 606，P =.16）、消极短语（8.7 和 8.4，P =.29）、积极短语（4.2 和 4.1，P =.10）、问号（4.8 和 4.6，P =.26）和“请”字的使用（1.0 和 1.0，P =.86）方面没有差异。在这项研究中，评审员 2 提供了与其他评审员相同情绪的评审，这表明围绕评审员 2 的流行观点可能没有根据。
