Why review for The Bone & Joint Journal?

There are many benefits to being a reviewer for The Bone & Joint Journal, much of which is related to developing personally and professionally as a surgeon, researcher and colleague…

• Getting to see the latest research ideas, even those which are ultimately not suitable for publication, as well as getting an insight into future trends
• Continuous professional development - provides you with a ‘nudge’ to keep up to date with your field, sometimes in areas one wouldn’t normally cover!
• Getting to see the latest research ideas, even those which are ultimately not suitable for publication, as well as getting an insight into future trends.
• Continuous professional development - provides you with a ‘nudge’ to keep up to date with your field, sometimes in areas one wouldn’t normally cover!
• Feedback from the Associate Editor regarding what was useful in your review (and sometimes what was less so) and what other reviewers said.
• Keep your critical thinking alive and decide how studies (including your own) should best be designed, and challenge yourself to understand new methods.

But being a reviewer also gives you the chance to join in with and support an exciting and diverse segment of the orthopaedic community!

• Quid pro quo – we all need people to review our own papers, so return the favour and read theirs too!
• Reviewing gives you the chance to contribute to and shape the specialty you work in.
• You get to be a part of The Bone & Joint Journal community – a group of like-minded surgeons sharing and gaining knowledge and expertise together.

Think you’ve got what it takes?

We asked some of our Associate Editors for their top tips to being a good reviewer.

• Be confident to reject! If the paper isn’t suitable for The Bone & Joint Journal (either in quality or subject matter) you need to say so.
• If you’d like to recommend that a paper is ‘revised’, you need to make clear recommendations; it is difficult to help the authors otherwise.
• Keep your personal opinions out of the review as these cannot be used as justification; evidence-based statements only!
• One thorough review is much more useful (to you and the journal) than ten superficial reviews.
• Have a look at the latest literature related to the topic of the manuscript. Knowing that there has been another similar study published previously doesn’t necessarily mean that the new study is not important, but it is useful to refer to in terms of the existing evidence base.
• If you don’t understand something, say so in your review. This often comes up in relation to the statistical analysis; we are not expecting you to be a statistician.
• Have an opinion – we want to hear your opinion as opposed to sitting on the fence.
• Studies don’t have to be perfect, so if you think they are good (but imperfect), tell us and we can work with the author to improve them!
• Leave your biases and preconceived ideas behind and ask yourself ‘is the question being asked clinically relevant and how does this help me take care of patients?’.
• Be punctual and efficient with responses to review requests as this is courteous to the authors who are waiting on the insights of reviewers. In addition, many of our brilliant reviewers are authors themselves.

If you’d like to review but don’t think you’re ready yet, why not sign up to one of our Online Research Methods and Paper Review Courses!

Latest Reviewer Acknowledgement

You can read the Editor-in-Chief’s 2023 Reviewer Acknowledgement here.

How to start reviewing

We are always on the look-out for enthusiastic and engaged reviewers to join our team. If you’d like to be part of the team, please get in touch with: Emma Vodden, Director of Publishing (e.vodden@boneandjoint.org.uk).