For those who are not aware of the endless job scope of a lecturer / academician / researcher / consultant etc, we have one interesting yet challenging task. It is journal review. Since we are an expert in certain specific field of research, there will be time where we will be invited to review manuscripts that are submitted to certain journals. I have been doing this activity of journal review since I was a Ph.D student. But after Ph.D, I received more and more invitation to review journal manuscript. But wait… The number of journal that I review are not as much as our professors have to review. Roughly, I am reviewing around 5 to 10 journals a year (since 2013). I am expecting to receive more and more invitation. However, that’s nothing compared to professors who review more than 100 journal manuscript per year.

Is it tough?

Depends.

Sometimes, when we are hectic, we hardly have time to read and comprehend the content of the manuscript to be reviewed. However, when we have some piece of extra time to spend reading this manuscript, we can complete the review faster. There were moments where I managed to complete a review in 1 day. There are also moments where I took 3-4 weeks to complete a review. There was 1 review that I remembered not completing it at all.

Reward?

This is not a paid job. It is just for us to help and contribute to review and help to decide if a manuscript is worth publishing or not. However, it is required and counted in our KPI (Key Performance Index) or KAI (Key Amal Index)… as UTM called it now. The more we reviews we make, the more points get counted for our performance evaluation every each end of the year. Another way of looking at it, is the journal editors recognizes our expertise and credibility, and due to that, they invited us to review the manuscript. So, although it is not a paid task or project, academicians like me still do the review for the reasons above.

180 degree opposite opinion 

I know some colleagues who does not like the idea. Why you are doing this and not getting paid? Why you are letting them manipulating your intellectuality?  Why are you giving them a service for free? “Them” here refers to the publisher of the journals. I am not against my colleague’s idea NOR I am backing up this big journal publisher. At the moment, I am just doing what I am suppose to do as an academician and researcher. I am trying to do the best that I can for the best of the scientific advancement of knowledge. Somehow, I feel that experts like us should be rewarded and not let to do a free service.

What do you think?

I would like to see your opinions and the comment section below 🙂