📽️ [Video] Selecting Reviewers: What Really Happens After You Click “Submit”

Most early-career researchers think reviewer selection is a minor administrative step. It is not.

In today’s publishing system, reviewer scarcity, overloaded editors, and declining review invitations have quietly changed how manuscripts are evaluated. Yet almost no one explains this to PhD students and postdocs. Here is a fact that surprises many authors:

👉 In several major journals, more than 50% of invited reviewers now decline.

👉 Editors often spend days or weeks just securing two reviewers.

👉 Poor reviewer suggestions can delay a decision more than weak writing.

When journals ask authors to suggest reviewers, it is not a courtesy. It is a risk-management step in a strained system. In this video, I explain how reviewer selection works from the editorial side, and why misunderstandings at this stage quietly damage many submissions. 🎥 Watch the video:

👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajFB56pJOrI

What many researchers do not realize

• Editors rarely trust reviewer lists blindly

• Suggested reviewers are screened for expertise, independence, and ethical distance

• Recent co-authorship, same institution, or citation rings raise red flags

• Editors often start by checking authors you cite, not those you suggest

• Reviewer diversity is increasingly used as a quality signal, not a formality

Another uncomfortable reality: Authors are losing influence over reviewer nomination as editors take stronger control, because the system cannot afford biased or low-quality reviews.

🎯 What this video covers and why it matters

This video explains why journals ask authors to suggest reviewers 🧩, how editors actually assess those names in practice 🧐, and how reviewer scarcity now affects decision timelines ⏳. It shows how to identify qualified reviewers using references and databases 📚 and introduces the tools editors really use, including Scopus, Web of Science, JANE, PubMed, and MDPI Eureka 🛠️. It also clarifies how to avoid conflicts of interest without overcorrecting ⚖️, why diversity in reviewer pools strengthens editorial trust 🌍, and which editorial trends you need to adapt to now, not later 🔄. Peer review is not a black box 🔍, it is a system under pressure 🔥. Understanding how it works helps you reduce delays 🚀, avoid ethical mistakes ❌, improve review quality ✅, and build long-term editorial credibility 🏛️.

This video is designed for PhD candidates, postdocs, and early-career academics who want to engage with publishing professionally, not naively.

📚 Part of the playlist: Reviewers & Editors: Roles and Responsibilities

💬 If you’ve ever hesitated when asked to suggest reviewers, this one is for you.

📽️ Watch the academic vlog 👉 https://youtu.be/IdR_SCvdX5g

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#PhD students #Postdocs #Early-career academics