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I reviewed a paper in Journal A and recommended it for acceptance after major revision. Possibly the other reviewer was not satisfied with the quality of the paper, causing the reject decision by the editor of Journal A. Now, Journal B invited me to review the same paper. (My concerns and requested revisions are addressed now in the paper.) Should I accept the invitation to carry out the review? I personally think there is no need to review the paper again, since I did this for Journal A. Should I discuss it with the editor of Journal B?

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This is completely normal. If the paper addressed all your concerns, write a brief report explaining why the paper deserves (or does not deserve, whatever you think is appropriate) to be published in journal B. Add a note to the editor saying that you already refereed this paper for another journal and that all your older suggestions were addressed to your satisfaction.

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    The note to the editor saying that you've already seen this paper in the review process should happen before agreeing to do the review. Commented Jan 14, 2025 at 15:53
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    @ScottSeidman: In my mind, it is not necessary. As an editor, it would not affect my decision on assigning a refereeing job (besides being happy that somebody will not spend eternity "refereeing" a paper only to decline the job in the end or stopping communications altogether). Commented Jan 14, 2025 at 16:00
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    @ScottSeidman The editor is free to ignore the review for whatever reason or weight it more or less. In other words, there's no "forever hold your peace" in review, like a regulated study. Commented Jan 14, 2025 at 21:55
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    I'd argue you should start the author comments by saying that you previously reviewed the paper. Then you directly reference your previous points and discuss how they were or were not addressed. That gives direct feedback to the editor on the quality of the paper. It's much more useful than "I read it again and it's fine." Commented Jan 14, 2025 at 22:00
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    @ScottSeidman: As an editor (and I have served as a managing editor for three journals) I would not care one way or another. Commented Jan 14, 2025 at 23:01
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Addressing a slightly wider question: suppose that Reviewer has reviewed a paper for Journal A and that the paper is not published in that journal for some reason (it is rejected, the author(s) withdraw it, whatever). The paper is then submitted to Journal B, and Reviewer is asked to review it again. Is this okay?

Yes, this is fine and happens all the time.

Remember that the peer review process is not really about determining if a paper is "good" or "bad". Rather, it is about determining if a paper is an appropriate fit for a particular journal. Certainly, there are bad papers which are not appropriate for any journal, but a groundbreaking paper about the application of fractal zeta functions to the Riemann hypothesis is probably not appropriate for Theory and Application of Categories—it's just the wrong venue (or, because I guess I went too esoteric, a paper on underwater basket weaving is probably not appropriate for the journal Airborne Ceramics Smashing).

In reviewing a paper for a second time for a different journal, the reviewer can (and should) consider all of the things that they would have considered in their initial review:

  • is the topic of the paper appropriate for the journal?
  • is the "level" of the paper appropriate for the journal (e.g. in mathematics, results in highly niche areas will generally not be published in journals with a very general audience)?
  • are the findings of the paper appropriately novel (an incremental step forward may not be appropriate for a journal with generally publishes major leaps forward)?
  • does the paper pass the "sniff test" (i.e. do the results seem reasonable? does the methodology seem repeatable and verifiable? and so on)?
  • is the paper readable (is the paper written in clear, mechanically correct language)?
  • and so on.

Basically, the reviewer should approach the paper as they would any other. The advantage that the reviewer has in reviewing a paper for a second time is that they already know the answers to a lot of those questions. For example, the question here supposes that the paper originally needed revisions, and that those revisions have been made. Great! The reviewer already knows what flaws the paper had, and can see that those flaws have been addressed! Reviewing the paper should take that much less time.

Two final points to consider:

  1. While there is generally no problem with a reviewer reading a paper for a second time for a new journal, it is never a bad idea to communicate. The reviewer should let the editor know that they have reviewed the paper before for another journal. This definitely needs to be in the report, but it can't hurt to let the editor know ahead of time. In most cases, the editor likely won't care, and may even be happy that the review process could, potentially, go a bit faster. But there probably exist editors who would prefer to find another reviewer. In either case, clear communication is key.

  2. Depending on how niche a paper is, there may simply be a paucity of people who are qualified to review a given paper. While I work at a community college and don't get a lot of time to work on my own things, I know that if I were to submit a paper to a journal, there are maybe one or two dozen people in the world who have enough familiarity with the tiny little niche of mathematics that I work in to competently review that paper. If the paper is rejected from one journal, it is very likely that one of those people would be asked to review it for a second time at another journal. In many narrowly-focused areas, there just aren't that many potential reviewers to go around.

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    "the application of fractal zeta functions to the Riemann hypothesis is probably not appropriate for Theory and Application of Categories" .... ah yes, certainly not ... Commented Jan 14, 2025 at 15:08
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    And that, kids, is why other people use underwater basket weaving as an example. -- and btw., you're saying "is probably not", can you elaborate on how big that probability is? Like, 49%? Or 0,0000000000001%? Commented Jan 14, 2025 at 15:31
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    Well, if that paper really is that ground-breaking, a pragmatic editor could easily think "this paper will rake in hundreds of citations and lots of media exposure for our little journal, I'll just accept it before someone else does, scope be damned" ;-) Commented Jan 14, 2025 at 17:43
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    @DonQuiKong I've added some baskets. I hate to put a number on it, because that isn't quite the right spirit. Rather, it is about scope. A paper on underwater basket weaving might be a good fit for Advances in Thrown Ceramics if there were a significant section on how methods of underwater basket weaving might apply to submarine pottery wheels, but the vast majority of papers on underwater basket weaving are almost certainly going to have nothing to do with ceramics, let alone cutting edge thrown ceramics. Commented Jan 14, 2025 at 17:46
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    @TooTea An run the risk of not being able to find qualified reviewers and then publishing something which turns out to be crap and has to be retracted? :P Sure, it could happen, but part of the job of the reviewer is to point out that something is out-of-scope. Commented Jan 14, 2025 at 17:47

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