Write a peer review of the preprint article by Purgar et al. titled Identify, quantify, act: tackling the unused potential of ecological research, which has been posted to the EcoEvoRxiv Preprint server and you can download here. This paper is written in more of an essay format, but it is general enough that everyone in class should be able to read, undertand, and comment on it.
Your review should follow the template provided below.
When you are finished, attach your Word document to an email or provide a link to a Google document, such that Mark will be able to provide comments directly on the draft itself (ie, do not paste it into the body of an email)
Comments to the editor (These are confidential and will not be seen by the authors.)
This is an opportunity to place your comments or major concerns into context. This section should be brief (1 paragraph).
General comments (These comments go directly to the authors.)
I typically begin this section with a one paragraph summary of what I thought the paper was about and then I highlight major findings/conclusions.
I then write 1-4 paragraphs that synthesize the most critical aspects of the quality of the science (either positive or negative) that you think should influence the manuscript decision. I also add big-picture suggestions for improving the manuscript, such as
Scientific quality: soundness of results and analysis, novelty, support of conclusions, and cohesiveness of argument
Writing and presentation: organization and flow of manuscript, writing style, quality of figures and tables, clarity in message, length relative to information content
Specific comments (These comments go directly to the authors.)
These are meant to highlight specific issues/problems you have with background, analyses, interpretation, etc. I prefer to reference these by page/line number, if/when possible. For example,
L 111: Please clarify what you mean by blah.
L 222: Here you mention X samples, but on line 200 you said it was Y samples. Which statement is correct?
L 333: There is a citation here for Smith (2020), but that reference does not appear in the literature cited section.