Amidst the ever-expanding realm of scientific production and the proliferation of predatory journals, the focus on peer review remains paramount for scientometricians and sociologists of science. Despite this attention, there is a notable scarcity of empirical investigations into the tangible impact of peer review on publication quality. This study aims to address this gap by conducting a comprehensive analysis of how peer review contributes to the quality of scholarly publications, as measured by the citations they receive. Utilizing an adjusted dataset comprising 57,482 publications from Publons to Web of Science and employing the Raking Ratio method, our study reveals intriguing insights. Specifically, our findings shed light on a nuanced relationship between the length of reviewer reports and the subsequent citations received by publications. Through a robust regression analysis, we establish that, beginning from 947 words, the length of reviewer reports is significantly associated with an increase in citations. These results not only confirm the initial hypothesis that longer reports indicate requested improvements, thereby enhancing the quality and visibility of articles, but also underscore the importance of timely and comprehensive reviewer reports. Furthermore, insights from Publons’ data suggest that open access to reports can influence reviewer behavior, encouraging more detailed reports. Beyond the scholarly landscape, our findings prompt a reevaluation of the role of reviewers, emphasizing the need to recognize and value this resource-intensive yet underappreciated activity in institutional evaluations. Additionally, the study sounds a cautionary note regarding the challenges faced by peer review in the context of an increasing volume of submissions, potentially compromising the vigilance of peers in swiftly assessing numerous articles.

在科学生产领域不断扩大和掠夺性期刊激增的情况下，对科学计量学家和科学社会学家来说，对同行评审的关注仍然至关重要。尽管受到如此关注，但对同行评审对出版物质量的实际影响的实证研究却明显缺乏。本研究旨在通过全面分析同行评审如何提高学术出版物的质量（以学术出版物收到的引用来衡量）来解决这一差距。我们的研究利用由 Publons 到 Web of Science 的 57,482 篇出版物组成的调整后数据集，并采用 Raking Ratio 方法，揭示了有趣的见解。具体来说，我们的研究结果揭示了审稿人报告的长度与出版物随后收到的引用之间的微妙关系。通过稳健的回归分析，我们发现，从 947 个单词开始，审稿人报告的长度与引用的增加显着相关。这些结果不仅证实了最初的假设，即较长的报告表明需要改进，从而提高文章的质量和可见性，而且还强调了及时、全面的审稿人报告的重要性。此外，Publons 数据的见解表明，报告的开放获取可以影响审阅者的行为，鼓励更详细的报告。除了学术领域之外，我们的研究结果促使人们重新评估审稿人的作用，强调需要认识和重视机构评估中这种资源密集型但未被充分重视的活动。此外，该研究对同行评审在提交数量不断增加的背景下面临的挑战提出了警告，可能会损害同行快速评估大量文章的警惕性。