How many manuscripts should I peer review per year?

Area of Science:

• Scholarly Publishing
• Scientific Communication

Background:

• Peer review is fundamental to academic publishing.
• Authors report an excessive number of manuscript review invitations.
• Potential causes include journal proliferation and predatory publishing.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the factors determining the number of required peer reviews.
• To address the perceived crisis in peer review workload.

Main Methods:

• Mathematical analysis of the peer review system.
• Examination of the relationship between rejection rates, reviewers per manuscript, and total reviews.

Main Results:

• The total number of required peer reviews is determined solely by journal rejection rates and the number of reviewers assigned per manuscript.
• The proliferation of journals and predatory publishing do not directly increase the number of reviews an author must perform.

Conclusions:

• The peer review workload is mathematically dependent on specific journal policies, not external factors like journal quantity.
• Initiatives should focus on optimizing rejection rates and reviewer allocation to alleviate author burden.