Peer Review Week: Tips for Peer Reviewers

Peer Review Week is still going strong, with publishers and reviewers across the globe chiming in with astute articles and intelligent commentary. Here at ECS, we’ve gotten insight from one of our associate editors, looked at how the peer review process works, and examined how it has become the heart of scholarly publication.

Now we’d like to take a moment to thank our reviewers, who use their technical expertise to help us maintain high-quality publication standards in all four of our peer reviewed journals. Take a look at these tips for peer reviewers.


PS: Want to publish with ECS? Find out how.

Five Questions for Associate Editor Scott Lillard

lillard_scottScott Lillard is currently the Professor & Carboline Endowed Chair in Corrosion at the University of Akron, where he leads academic research and is and major contributor to the establishment the university’s new Corrosion Engineering program. He has recently been appointed to the ECS Electrochemical Science & Technology (EST) Editorial Board as an Associate Editor for a two-year term beginning July 1, concentrating in the Corrosion Science and Technology Technical Interest Area.

What do you hope to accomplish in your new role as the EST Editorial Board Associate Editor?
I have some experience working on the board of some other journals, but I don’t think that’s what I really contribute. What I contribute is this idea of customer service. There are a number of reasons why people publish in the journal. It might be the appropriateness of the content or the impact factor, but the third reason is probably customer service. What does that mean? That means getting good peer reviews in a timely manner and treating the authors in a professional manner.

How do you think peer reviewed journals have changed over the years?
I think the goals of authors are the same as they were 20 years ago. They want to get their publication out to people in their field so they can read it. They want to do that in as timely a manner as possible. The way in which the process is expected to occur is much different now than it was 20 years ago. It would take you six or nine months to get reviews back. That’s just not expected anymore. Everything is expected to be much more efficient now. I think efficiency, speed, and customer service are the things that are changing.

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September 28-October 2, 2015 is the first Peer Review Week, and it’s a good a time to put a spotlight on good practice in peer review and celebrate all it brings to the scholarly communication process. At ECS, we are marking Peer Review Week with a look at how peer review works here, and what happens to your manuscript after you submit it.

Our authors already know that the preparation and submission of a scientific manuscript for peer review can be a lengthy process, involving not just the research work and writing of the paper, but also the collection of supporting pieces of information required to enable publication.

But what happens after you hit the “Submit” button?

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peer review weekThis week (September 28-October 2, 2015) marks the first-ever Peer Review Week, a community-driven movement to discuss and celebrate the peer review process. Peer Review Week serves as a forum to take a deeper look at the heart of scholarly communications.

Peer review is not only critical for assuring high-quality science is published, it is also a crucial part of how society perceives published science and how reputable it is to the world at large.

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Call for Papers: JSS Focus Issue

JSS CoverThis special issue of the ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology focuses on defect characterization in semiconductor materials and devices. We especially welcome papers in the following domains:

  • Structural, chemical, electrical and optical characterization of extended defects in semiconductor nano-structures and materials
  • Electrical and optical characterization of point defects in semiconductor nano-structures
  • Semiconductor-device-based defect analysis
  • Impact of (extended) defects on device and circuit operation and yield
  • Defect characterization and control in hetero-epitaxial layers and nano-structures grown on Si, comprising Ge, SiGe, GeSn, III-V and III-nitrides
  • Ab initio calculations and TCAD of the electrical activity of (extended) defects in semiconductor materials and devices
  • Defect control and mitigation strategies during hetero-epitaxial deposition

Find out more!

Submission Deadline | Oct. 21, 2015
Papers accepted into this focus issue are published online within 10 days of acceptance.
The issue is created online an article at a time with the final article published in March 2016.

Call for Papers: ECS Focus Issues

focus_issues_coversECS publishes special or “focus” issues in order to highlight scientific and technological areas of current interest and future promise that are expanding rapidly or have taken a new direction.

The editors of the Journal of The Electrochemical Society (JES) and the ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology (JSS) are calling for papers for these upcoming focus issues:

Defect Characterization in Semiconductor Materials and Devices
Submission Deadline: October 21, 2015
In recent years, a rapidly growing interest and concern have developed within the microelectronics industry and research community with respect to defect characterization in hetero-epitaxial layers and nano-structures for CMOS and photonic applications. Read more.

Honoring Allen J. Bard
Submission Deadline: September 30, 2015
ECS welcomes original research contributions to a special issue of the Journal of The Electrochemical Society honoring Allen J. Bard. Prof. Bard has been a pioneer of modern electrochemistry for over 60 years and a long-standing member of the Society. For his 80th birthday, The Electrochemical Society founded the Allen J. Bard Award in 2013 to honor his extensive contributions to the field of electrochemistry; the first award was given in May 2015. Read more.

ORCID Explained in One Minute

Logan Streu, ECS Content Associate & Assistant to the CCO, recently came across a video from The Scholarly Kitchen explaining how ORCID works (with dolls as visual aids).

Learn more about ORCID! Check out Logan’s articles on the benefits of ORCID identifiers:

Find out more about signing-up for ORCID!

The Advantages of Studies with Short Titles

As title length increases, the number of citations typically decreases. [Click to enlarge]

As title length increases, the number of citations typically decreases.
[Click to enlarge]

With the use of technical terms and complex formals, scientific journal articles are typically a difficult read for the non-expert. However, sometimes scientists themselves also have a difficult time wading through the highly complicated terms in these studies.

A new analysis of 140,000 scientific papers has recently been released, suggesting that studies with shorter titles are more often cited than those with long titles. The reason? Papers with shorter titles may be generally more concise and easier to comprehend.

The analysis began by looking at 20,000 of the most highly cited scientific papers published from 2007 to 2010. Each year consistently showed that papers with shorter titles received more attention.

This from Popular Science:

The situation gets more complicated, though, when you take journal rankings into account. Papers published in more prestigious journals tend to get more citations. Once the authors controlled for that factor, the correlation between shorter titles and higher citations only held up for the years 2007 to 2010. But the results do show that, overall, journals that publish papers with shorter titles tend to receive more citations per paper.

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Tech Highlights

Check out what’s trending in electrochemical and solid state technology! Read some of the most exciting and innovative papers that have been recently published in ECS’s journals.

The articles highlighted below are free! Follow the links to get the full-text version.

Development of Hybrid Electro-Electroless Deposit (HEED) Coatings and Applications
Electrodeposition can be achieved via electroplating, whereby current is applied to the work piece serving as the cathode, or by using an electroless deposition process, wherein the reductant is a co-dissolved species in the plating solution. Researchers in Canada have developed a combined deposition process, termed hybrid electro-electroless deposition (HEED) to deposit two metals. Read the rest.

“Time of Flight” Electrochemistry
Measurement of molecular diffusion coefficients is important in understanding and determining the kinetics of physical and chemical processes. Among the measurement techniques employed are those based on pulsed field gradient nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, field flow fractionation, and electrochemistry. Read the rest.

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Are You Using the Right Words and Phrases?

Logan Streu, ECS Content Associate & Assistant to the CCO, recently came across a video that takes a close (albeit funny) look at the misleading or misused words frequently used in scientific research.

Is “scientific proof” an oxymoron? Is there really a gene for everything? Check out the video below to see some of the phrases that are often misused.

Want more science videos? Check out our YouTube channel!