Peer-review guide available in Chinese

Share this on social media:

The charitable trust Sense about Science has released a Chinese version of its guide to peer review. The aim is to help the public make sense of research claims.

According to the organisation, I Don’t Know What to Believe: Making Sense of Science Stories... 'explains the peer review process – the system researchers use to assess the validity, significance and originality of papers. It captures experiences and insights from editors and scientists and encourages people to ask “Is it peer reviewed?” when reading science stories.' 

This public guide to peer review has been translated into Chinese by the journalist Yue Yaun, and is being hosted on Guok.com, a Chinese information site.

Yue Yuan, editor, San Lian Life Weekly, commented 'China is changing rapidly toward a new era. Many new thoughts and special-interest groups are trying to win over public support. A lot of movie and sport stars have much more power over public opinion than before. In this confusing time, it is even more important to be able to separate fact from fiction. This guide is a good start. The peer review system can make mistakes but it is the most reliable quality-control system by far. You will be less likely to make mistakes if you trust the peer review system, rather than your own gut feeling, or the politicians or individual scholars.'

China’s contribution to global peer review is still small but a survey carried out in 2009 revealed that 85 per cent of Chinese researchers saw peer review as an important part of improving the quality of research papers and 90 per cent saw it as greatly helping scientific communication.