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US and non-US submissions: an analysis of reviewer bias
1Gastroenterology, Bethesda, MD, USA.
Context:
Reviewers increasingly are asked to review manuscripts from outside their own country, but whether they are more likely to recommend acceptance of such manuscripts is not known.
Objective:
To assess whether US reviewers or non-US reviewers evaluate manuscripts differently, depending on whether the manuscripts are submitted from outside the United States or from the United States.
Design And Setting:
A retrospective analysis of all original submissions received by Gastroenterology in 1995 and 1996. Reviewers ranked manuscripts in 4 decision categories: accept, provisionally accept, reject with resubmission, or reject.
Main Outcome Measure:
Ranking of papers based on nationality of authors and reviewers.
Results:
The percentage of non-US manuscripts placed in each decision category by US (n = 2355) and non-US reviewers (n = 1297) was nearly identical (P= .31). However, US reviewers recommended acceptance of papers submitted by US authors more often than did non-US reviewers (P=.001). Non-US reviewers ranked US papers slightly more favorably than non-US papers (P=.09), while US reviewers ranked US papers much more favorably (P=.001).
Conclusions:
Reviewers from the United States and outside the United States evaluate non-US papers similarly and evaluate papers submitted by US authors more favorably, with US reviewers having a significant preference for US papers.