"Peer review: Scrutiny by one's peers (equals). Peer-reviewed articles appearing in medical journals have been scrutinized by members of the biomedical community before publication."
www.medterms.com (accessed 02 June 2005).

All papers submitted to EMJ are reviewed by the editorial team with 20% rejected without being sent out for external peer review on the grounds of priority, insufficient originality, scientific flaws, or the absence of a message that is important to the readers of the journal.

The remaining articles are sent to one or more external reviewers selected from a database of more than 1000 experts. Reviewers advise the editor who is responsible for the final decision to accept or reject a manuscript.

EMJ now operates an optional system of open peer review. This means that reviewers can sign their reports if they wish. Open peer review does not mean that authors should feel able to contact reviewers directly to discuss their reports; all queries should still be directed through the editorial office.

View more information about open peer review.

The Editors thank all of the reviewers for taking time to make the peer review process work.

If you are invited to review a manuscript, you will be contacted by email. To view more details about the manuscript, (for example author details and abstract) please access Bench>Press and enter the Reviewer Area.

If this is your first visit to Bench>Press you will need to register first: assistance with registration.

Please be sure to use the email address you were contacted with to register, this can be changed after registration. If you are unsure which email address to use please feedback{at}bmj.com before registering.

1. Accept review assignment
2. Decline to review
3. Email regarding conflict of interest

If you accept the assignment, the manuscript will automatically move to your Active Reviews queue. If you decline to review, please state your reasons for declining (for example, too busy, not your area of expertise etc. - this will help the Editors in asking for your assistance in the future); we would also be grateful if you could suggest alternative reviewers. The third option allows you to email editorial staff with any queries you may have before deciding whether to review the manuscript.

Please note: the manuscript record will stay in this queue until a decision to accept or decline the review has been taken.

If you would like to review the manuscript but are unable to complete your review within the specified time frame, please emjeditorial{at}bmjgroup.com as we may be able to extend the deadline.

If you have agreed to review a manuscript, the manuscript record will have automatically moved to your Active Reviews queue. In this queue you have access to the abstract, the full article (as a PDF), and the html linked references. Occasionally, there may also be supplementary data (eg. appendices, extra figures or references, movie clips etc.) and these will also be available to you in this queue.

Please note: any supplementary information is available in its original format (for example. Word, Excel, JPEG, MPEG) and will require the relevant software to view it.

Please emjeditorial{at}bmjgroup.com if you have any problems viewing supplementary data.

From within this queue, you are able to:

1. Submit your review
2. Contact the editorial office (with any queries or for an extension to the review period)
3. Withdraw your review

If you wish to withdraw your acceptance to review, please enter your reasons for doing so in the space provided.

Please do not duplicate your comments for the author in the comments to the editor field. This field should only include extra, confidential comments for the editor. The editor can see the comments for the author. The review form may be a series of checkboxes, or statements with yes/no answers (the review form is not made available to the authors). Most reviewers are also asked to give a recommendation (accept as is, accept with revisions, reject etc.); please do not include your recommendation in the comments to authors field.

1. References linked to MedLine
2. Links to other articles published by the authors
3. Links to articles on similar topics

If you have partially completed your review but do not have time to finish it, you are able to save your comments and complete them at a later date. The Save button can be found at the bottom of the screen. To continue with the review, return to the Active Reviews queue and click on the Edit / Submit Review link. When you are ready to submit your review to the journal, click on the Submit my review button at the bottom of the page.

You will also receive automatic notification that your review has been successfully submitted to the journal. A more formal thank you email will be sent when all reviews are in and the editor makes a decision on the manuscript.

Once the Editor has made a decision on a paper that you have reviewed, you will be sent an email thanking you for your review and asking you to go to your Reviewer Area on Bench>Press to view the decision and any other reviewers' comments (if applicable).

To view the decision and other reviewer comments, click on the Reviewer History link. You will see details of all the manuscripts you have reviewed, including the final decision of the Editor, and a link to any other reviewer's comments.

If you have been asked to re-review a manuscript and wish to see your original comments, you will need to access the Reviewer History queue to view them. They are currently not available in any other queue.

This has recently been put into the reviewer area and your personal information area on Benchpress. It is a certificate for reviewers stating what you have reviewed in a time period that you decide. You can use it for your CV or profiles and as proof to go towards CME/CPD Points.

To retrieve your certificate please go to your Reviewer Area or Personal Information Area; Here there will be a box with the statement 'Prepare a Journal Activity Certificate for this time period', add the dates you would like the certificate to represent and click on 'Prepare Certificate'.
This will then create a reviewer certificate which you can save and/or print.