Fishing reviewing: A threat to research integrity and credibility

Table 3 Criteria for recognizing “fishing reviewers”

Criteria	Description	Indicators
Diverse acceptance of articles	Reviewers accept articles beyond their specialized domain	Regularly accepting unrelated articles
Short turnaround time	The brief duration between review request acceptance and submission	Consistently short review times
Non-specific and template-based replies	Generic, non-specific feedback	Identical phrases across multiple reviews
Lack of constructive feedback	Vague feedback lacking specific suggestions	Primarily critical comments without actionable insights
Bias based on author’s attributes	Decisions are based on the author’s demographic details	Correlation of decisions with author’s demographics
Inconsistent review results	Review outcomes differ substantially from others	Conflicts with evaluations from credible reviewers
Consistently extreme ratings	Extreme ratings for all manuscripts	Regularly providing highest or lowest ratings
Inconsistencies in language proficiency	Inconsistent language proficiency in reviews	Fluctuating levels of language proficiency
Repetitive and overused phrases	Overuse of specific phrases	Identifiable phrases in multiple reviews
Unwillingness to engage in revision discussions	Unwillingness to provide additional feedback	Declining requests for further clarification
Consistent acceptance of poor-quality manuscripts	Regularly accepting substandard manuscripts	Frequently accepting manuscripts with major flaws
Pattern of abrupt rejections	Immediate and outright rejections	Multiple swift rejections without comprehensive assessment
Lack of engagement with related literature	Failing to reference relevant literature	Reviews lacking discussion on related research