Are You a Match?

After considering your conflicts of interest, you should also consider whether your expertise is a good match for the manuscript topic before you agree to review.

Reviewer matching can be a complicated process, but you know more about your own experience than anyone else! Being honest about your ability to provide useful feedback is as important as the feedback itself.

Even though you were likely selected because you work in a similar subspecialty as covered in the manuscript, ask yourself:

• Are you familiar enough with the author’s research question, technique, or methodology to judge it accurately? Have you published on it previously? If so, you might be a good match.
• Are there significant aspects of the manuscript you don’t understand or don’t have direct experience with? Is the topic new to you? If so, you’re probably not the best reviewer for this manuscript.