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Conventional guidelines for referee reports

How to write a good review (general conventional guidelines)

Some key points

Cite evidence and reference specific parts of the research when giving feedback.
Justify your critiques and claims in a reasoning-transparent way, rather than merely ‘"passing judgment." Avoid comments like "this does not pass the smell test".
Provide specific, actionable feedback to the author where possible.
Try to restate the authors’ arguments, clearly presenting the most reasonable interpretation of what they have written. See .
Be collegial and encouraging, but also rigorous. Criticize and question specific parts of the research without suggesting criticism of the researchers themselves.

We're happy for you to use whichever process and structure you feel comfortable with when writing your evaluation content.

One possible structure

Core

Briefly summarize the work in context
Highlight positive aspects of the paper and its strengths and contributions, considered in the context of existing research.

Remember: The Unjournal doesn’t “publish” and doesn’t “accept or reject.” So don’t give an Accept, Revise-and-Resubmit', or Reject-type recommendation. We ask for quantitative metrics, written feedback, and expert discussion of the validity of the paper's main claims, methods, and assumptions.

Writing referee reports: resources and benchmarks

Economics

Semi-relevant:

Report:

Open Science

(Conventional but open access; simple and brief)

(Open-science-aligned; perhaps less detail-oriented than we are aiming for)

(Journal-independent “PREreview”; detailed; targets ECRs)

General, other fields

(Conventional; general)

(extensive resources; only some of this is applicable to economics and social science)

Other templates and tools

‘the 4 validities’ and