Definition
Plain language
Other researchers reading a paper before publication to check whether it holds up.
As stated in the literature
Pre-publication evaluation by domain experts; TRACES treats it as a slow, overloaded and demonstrably permeable verifier for scientific claims.
Why it matters: It is the main quality gate before publication, and every retracted paper in this study passed through it.
For example, a journal sends a submitted manuscript to two or three researchers in the same field, who read it and recommend acceptance, revision or rejection.
Heard on the show
“Some of these papers have cleared workshop peer review.”Episode 089 — When AI-Written Papers Read Well But the Evidence Underneath Is Broken