Importance of Peer Reviewing

To understand the importance of peer reviewed articles, one must understand the risks involved with open source media. Open source media is any websites, blogs, etc that are freely accessed and/or free to be edited or added to without qualification. The most prominent example is Wikipedia. Though the core values of Wikipedia are well intended, the way in which they allow anyone to edit and add to their stockpile of information can lead to many falsified claims. This is an issue across all forms of open source media. This is where the importance of peer review comes into play. Oxford dictionary defines peer review as “Evaluation of scientific, academic, or professional work by others working in the same field.” (Oxford Dictionary, 2016) This statement alone does not quiet cover the full importance of this matter and is better explained by Andre Spicer and Thomas Roulet in their co-authored article for The Conversation named Explainer: what is peer review? The article clearly states that “Peer review is one of the gold standards of science. It’s a process where scientists (“peers”) evaluate the quality of other scientists’ work. By doing this, they aim to ensure the work is rigorous, coherent, uses past research and adds to what we already knew.” (Spicer A, Roulet T, 2014) This statement perfectly portrays the true definition of peer review. Given these statements, it is clear that the importance of peer review is identify and acknowledge accurate information and to acknowledge the work of the authors within their respective domain.

Spicer A, Roulet T, 2014, ‘Explainer: what is peer review?’, The Conversation, viewed 29 November 2016, https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-peer-review-27797

Oxford Dictionaries English, 2016, “peer review - definition of peer review in English’, Oxford Dictionaries, viewed 29 November 2016, https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/peer_review