What Makes a Paper a Good Candidate for Peer Review?
The goal of the SPE’s peer-reviewed technical journals is to provide the oil and gas E&P industry with a repository for knowledge and technology, the validity and usefulness of which are assured by rigorous peer review. A paper has to meet the criteria below if it is to be accepted for publication in one of these journals.
1) Relevance
Its contents have to be of use to an engineer practicing one of the
disciplines addressed by the journal in question.
- The paper is relevant to the technical scope of the journal and to the professional interests and activities of its audience.
- Ideally it should present new knowledge or technology that has the potential to help the reader in their professional work as practicing engineers.
2) Innovation
It should present new knowledge or technology, or analyze previously known
facts in a new way.
- A paper should present new knowledge or analyse previously known facts in a new way. Additionally it should take full account of previously published work on its subject.
- A case history is appropriate if it presents the application of existing technology in a new way or in a new location or environment where it has not previously been used and that requires new and previously un-used techniques or analyses.
- A review paper is appropriate if it finds connections between previously unrelated facts or commonality between previously uncompiled facts and results, or makes deductions that give the reader substantiated guidance on the accuracy and applicability of the reviewed analyses.
3) Technical Detail
It should be logically sound, and it should give sufficient detail to
allow the reader to replicate the work it describes and to assess its
applicability to other environments.
- The research design, methods, and analyses are adequately defined and clearly described, well integrated, well reasoned, and appropriate to the aims of the project.
- The paper should present sufficient detail of the application, methods and analyses employed and results achieved to allow the reader to replicate the work descried but also to evaluate its applicability to the environment and problems on which they are working.
- Statistical tests are appropriate and the assumptions underlying the use of statistics are fulfilled by the data.
- The statistics are reported correctly and appropriately.
4) Presentation and
Documentation
It should present clearly and concisely in the SPE’s standard format all
relevant data and information to support the conclusions and to indicate their
limitations.
- The text is well written and easy to follow.
- The introduction builds a logical case and context for the problem statement.
- The problem statement is clear and well articulated.
- The data reported are accurate (e.g., the numbers add up) and appropriate; tables, graphs and figures are used effectively and agree with the text.
- The amount of data presented is sufficient and appropriate.
- Results are presented effectively; the interpretations of the results are appropriate and the conclusions accurate.
- The conclusions are clearly stated and follow from the design, methods, and results; the justification of conclusions is well articulated.
- The study limitations are discussed.
- Statistical differences are distinguished from meaningful differences.
- Practical significance or theoretical implications are discussed.
- Reference citations are complete, accurate and up-to-date. The number of references is appropriate and their selection is judicious.
5) Professional
Conduct
It must avoid commercialism and plagiarism, and must not have been
published previously.
- There are no commercial references.
- There are no instances of plagiarism.
- Ideas and materials of others are correctly attributed.
- Substantial portions of the data or study should not have been previously published.
Although the SPE technical journals welcome unsolicited manuscripts, many of the papers they publish have been presented at an SPE-organized conference or meeting. However, conferences have their own criteria for acceptance, and many good conference papers do not meet the criteria for publication in a technical journal. Conference papers that are not accepted for publication in one of the SPE’s technical journals remain accessible to the industry through the SPE’s eLibrary.
The peer review process involves members of the journal’s Review Committee reading your paper, evaluating the extent to which it meets the criteria for publication, and providing constructive feedback on how it could be improved. Please bear in mind that by submitting a paper for review you are asking several fellow professionals each to volunteer their time to review your paper. The review of papers that were not written to meet these publication criteria slows down the review of papers that were written so to do. One of the SPE’s most important functions is sharing of new knowledge and technology. To that end we encourage the submission of technical papers for publication in our peer-reviewed journals. At the same time, out of consideration for reviewers and for authors of other papers, we would ask you to think whether or not your paper is likely to meet these criteria before you submit it for peer review.
Please also remember that if your paper is submitted for peer review, you will probably be asked to make some revisions based on the comments of the reviewers. Authors who do not submit revised manuscripts in a timely manner will risk having their paper declined. By submitting your paper for peer review you are committing to making revisions, so be certain you will have time to respond.
