Gardner M J, Altman D G, Jones D R, Machin D
Br Med J (Clin Res Ed). 1983 May 7;286(6376):1485-8. doi: 10.1136/bmj.286.6376.1485.
A study was performed to judge the effectiveness of the statistical assessment scheme for papers submitted to the "British Medical Journal." Statistical criticism of the content of 200 submitted papers which had already been seen by a subject referee led directly or indirectly to 73 (37%) being rejected for publication. In most cases (53 out of 73) serious problems requiring more than minor revision were identified. A comparison of reports on subsequently unpublished and published papers showed that adverse statistical assessments--suggesting major problems--were more common in the papers that were not accepted for publication. Moderate, or less, revision was recommended for 63% of published papers but 39% of the remainder. A checklist of relevant questions was used in making a detailed comparison of 12 published papers, six of which had been statistically assessed and six of which had not. This comparison yielded little evidence that the papers that had been assessed were statistically more acceptable than those that had not been assessed but re-emphasised the subjectivity of refereeing and assessment.
开展了一项研究，以评判提交给《英国医学杂志》论文的统计评估方案的有效性。对200篇已由学科评审员审阅过的提交论文的内容进行统计批评，直接或间接导致73篇（37%）论文被拒稿。在大多数情况下（73篇中的53篇），发现了需要大幅修改而非小修小补的严重问题。对随后未发表和已发表论文的报告进行比较发现，表明存在重大问题的负面统计评估在未被接受发表的论文中更为常见。63%的已发表论文建议进行适度或更小幅度的修改，但其余论文中有39%建议如此。使用一份相关问题清单对12篇已发表论文进行详细比较，其中6篇经过统计评估，6篇未经过统计评估。该比较几乎没有证据表明经过评估的论文在统计上比未经过评估的论文更可接受，但再次强调了评审和评估的主观性。
