title: Peer review: Does it matter?
abstract: A time-honored principle observed in the domain of published journals in the health field is to rely upon the judgment of peers in making decisions about which manuscripts will be accepted and which will be rejected. A paper by Lipworth et al. that appeared in the April 2011 issue of Social Science & Medicine addresses many pros and cons of relying upon the peer-review process to ensure that only high-quality research is published (either by rejecting or improving substandard manuscripts) and also to increase the likelihood that the findings are disseminated to interested parties. The authors refer to many studies that support the points made in their paper.
authors.forename: Thomas W
authors.initials: TW
authors.lastname: Elwood
mesh_terms: D016390:Allied Health Occupations; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination; D017712:Peer Review, Research; D010506:Periodicals as Topic