Peer reviewer
Settle the venue rule on AI first, then build the report from one human read and the public citation record.
Intermediate- The manuscript and the venue, editor, or course policy
- Enough domain knowledge to judge the method, not only the writing
A structured report: summary, major issues with fixes, minor issues, citation flags with public URLs, and a recommendation that follows from the majors.
Finish every lesson and you should have: A structured report: summary, major issues with fixes, minor issues, citation flags with public URLs, and a recommendation that follows from the majors.
Find the venue, editor, or course policy on generative AI in peer review and copy the sentence that covers submitted work. Perplexity may hand you the URL; you open the page yourself. Write one word at the top of your notes: allowed, forbidden, or unclear. Unclear counts as forbidden.
Read the whole manuscript with the pen down, then write the main claim in two sentences from memory. File it in Zotero with venue, deadline, confidentiality status, and the policy lock from lesson one. The PDF stays on your machine on this pass.
Build a four-column table: claim, evidence offered, method behind it, conclusion drawn. Mark where the chain breaks and write why. Claude may pressure-test your map only if the policy lock reads allowed; otherwise the map stays in your own notes.
Take the references the argument leans on. In Scite, see whether later papers cite each one as supporting or contrasting. In Semantic Scholar, confirm the paper exists as described and test the novelty claim against a search. None of this needs the confidential PDF.
Open with a summary in the authors' own terms, then major issues, minor issues, and a recommendation that follows from the majors. Every major comment names the problem, says why it changes the conclusion, and offers one thing the authors could do. Manuscript text stays out of any cloud polish the venue forbids.
You should now have: A structured report: summary, major issues with fixes, minor issues, citation flags with public URLs, and a recommendation that follows from the majors.
- You can quote the sentence that permits or forbids uploading this manuscript, and name the page it sits on.
- You can summarise the main claim in two sentences with the PDF closed.
- You can name the weakest link and the passage in the manuscript that creates it.
- Every citation flag links to a public record a co-reviewer could open.
- Every major comment has an action, and the recommendation follows from the number and severity of the majors.