ABC | Volume 110, Nº2, February 2018

Editorial What are the Characteristics of an Excellent Review of Scientific Articles? Carlos Eduardo Rochitte 1 and Claudio Tinoco Mesquita 2 Instituto do Coração do Hospital das Clínicas da FMUSP (InCor – HCFMUSP); 1 Hospital do Coração (HCOR), 2 São Paulo, SP; Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), 3 Niterói, RJ; Hospital Pró-Cardíaco, 4 Rio de Janeiro, RJ – Brazil Mailing Address: Carlos Eduardo Rochitte • Instituto do Coração - InCor - Setor de Ressonância e Tomografia Cardiovascular Av. Dr. Enéas de Carvalho Aguiar, 44 Andar AB. Postal Code 05403-000, Cerqueira César, São Paulo, SP – Brazil E-mail: rochitte@incor.usp.br Keywords Authorship and Co-Authorship in Scientific Publications; Scientific and Technical Publications; Peer Review; Peer Review, Research; Journal Impact Factor. DOI: 10.5935/abc.20180032 The selection by a scientific journal’s editor-in-chief and associate editors of a manuscript for publishing is mainly, although not exclusively, based on the opinion of the manuscript’s reviewers. This process is known as peer review and consists on the manuscript’s assessment by experts in the area, who judge the scientific merit of the manuscript submitted to the journal. This process is expected to accept the better science for publishing, while refusing that of lower merit. Other standards and rules followed by editors of international journals contribute to improve the scientific quality of the journals. 1 One of the most important contributions of peer review is the refinement of the manuscript regarding its clarity and content. To optimize the reviewer’s contribution in this process, understanding the characteristics involved is necessary. In the peer-review system, it is crucial that the reviewer’s scientific opinion be transmitted to the editors in a clear and focused way regarding the essential aspects for decision making. This information is conveyed through writing by the reviewer in the review system of a given journal. Dealing with online article submission and review systems is challenging, and most of such systems are neither intuitive nor easy to use. However, this editorial will not focus on such difficulties, which can usually be overcome with the support of assistant editors and an efficient editorial office, which we fortunately have for the Brazilian Society of Cardiology (SBC) journals: the Arquivos Brasileiros de Cardiologia and the International Journal of Cardiovascular Science . We will address the specific topics that should be clearly indicated by the reviewers to allow the editors to make their best decision possible. In addition to local specific suggestions that the SBC journals’ editors consider important, we add recommendations of other editors for an excellent-quality review. 2,3 An excellent review requires time and effort of the reviewer, in addition to a non-trivial work of checking the literature in the manuscript’s specific area. That time tends to decrease as the reviewer gains more experience, but, on average, it ranges from 2 to 3 hours. The reviewer is rewarded with the knowledge and updated view of the specific area, in addition to the possibility of influencing the text that will be read by the scientific cardiovascular community. An excellent review will play a crucial role in the manuscript’s acceptance or rejection, as well as significantly improve the manuscript’s quality. It is a great opportunity for the reviewer not only to participate in the dissemination of innovation and new knowledge, but to directly influence it, in addition to being aware, prior to other colleagues, of the innovations that are in the pipeline, that is, in the publishing process. Usually, our reviewers are chosen based on their capability and technical knowledge in cardiovascular science and their history of publishing in that specific field, which make them highly trained in article editing, often qualifying them as excellent reviewers. However, the process of article selection usually requires specific responses focused in certain aspects of the manuscript that can pass unnoticed by the reviewer. In addition, different journals can differ in the way reviewers and editors communicate. Many reviewers never receive any formal guidance on what editors consider essential in reviews. This document will provide the reviewers with the information the Arquivos Brasileiros de Cardiologia and International Journal of Cardiovascular Science editors would like to find in an excellent review for their journals. The scientific reviewers are invited to represent the journals in selecting articles of high scientific quality for publishing. The reviewers should protect our journals from articles with evident flaws or with methodological errors, inappropriate analysis or conclusions. In that aspect, the reviewers act as judges. In addition, they are expected to act as consultants to the authors to improve the article. Another characteristic of the process is that almost all articles that undergo peer review, whether accepted or not for publishing, end up improved. Many reviews begin with a short summary of the manuscript. Although the editors have already read the manuscript, this summary provides them with the perspective of the reviewer, an expert in the area. Thus, the manuscript’s summary, although not mandatory, is extremely useful for the editors and highly recommendable. The essence of a review is the manuscript’s assessment and how it will serve the scientific process. The reviewer should ask himself the following questions: Is there a rationale for the study’s objectives? How important is the hypothesis being tested? The term ‘important’ here can have several meanings, depending on the subjective view of each reviewer, but a point considered critical is whether the hypothesis is original and has not been tested before in the literature. The famous gap in the literature is what we search in a manuscript to justify its publication. Metaphorically speaking, we look for a hole in the cardiovascular science wall to put a brick in it. Or, more directly speaking: Is it new? Is it true? Does anybody care about it? Or: Is the manuscript original, precise, valid and relevant? 106