Peer Review

Single-Blind, Pre-Publication Peer Review

Cureus is a formally peer-reviewed medical journal. All articles accepted for peer review undergo a single-blind, pre-publication peer review process in which reviewers know the identity of the authors, but authors do not know the identity of the reviewers.

Reviewers are made anonymous through Cureus' automated system. Once a reviewer accepts the review invitation, they are assigned a Greek letter to be used for identification purposes by the authors (e.g. Reviewer Alpha).

Additional Information:

• Any supplemental material included with the article is also subject to peer review.
• Reviews are not posted with the published articles.
• Medical students are ineligible to serve as peer reviewers.
• Advisers are not considered peer reviewers and adviser feedback is not considered during article evaluation by independent Cureus editors.
• Peer review can be completed from desktop, tablet or mobile devices.

Requirements to Satisfy Peer Review

Two completed reviews from independent peer reviewers are required to satisfy peer review. Six peer reviewers are automatically invited from the Cureus internal peer review panel, consisting of Cureus Editorial Board members and relevant specialists who have either volunteered for the panel or previously published as an author in Cureus.

Reviewers are selected based on specialty, reviewer keywords, and activity. To prevent a potential conflict of interest, peer reviewers with the same listed affiliation as one or more co-authors will not be invited to review your manuscript. Submitted peer reviews lacking in constructive feedback will be rejected by Cureus editors.

Once the article has entered peer review, three additional peer reviewers are automatically invited by Cureus every two days to ensure that the article completes the peer review process in a timely fashion.