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'Anyone can do this': Sleuths publish a toolkit for post-publication review -- Retraction Watch
https://retractionwatch.com/2025/06/04/cosig-sleuths-publish-toolkit-post-publication-review/
For years, sleuths – whose names our readers are likely familiar with – have been diligently flagging issues with the scientific literature. More than a dozen of these specialists have teamed up to create a set of guides to teach others their trade.
The Collection of Open Science Integrity Guides (COSIG) aims to make “post-publication peer review” more accessible, according to the preprint made available online today. The 25 guides so far range from general – “PubPeer commenting best practices” – to field-specific – like spotting issues with X-ray diffraction patterns.
Although 15 sleuths are named as contributors on the project, those we talked to emphasized the project should be largely credited to Reese Richardson, the author of the preprint.
Richardson, a metascience researcher at Northwestern University, told us the motivation behind the project was to “affirm that anyone can do post-publication peer review, especially working scientists.”
“We wanted to demonstrate how far just a few tidbits of specialized knowledge — like how to check energy dispersive X-ray spectra, what to look for in cases of suspected plagiarism and what softwares are available for image forensics — can go towards spotting integrity issues in the scientific literature,” Richardson said.
. . .
The Collection of Open Science Integrity Guides (COSIG) aims to make “post-publication peer review” more accessible, according to the preprint made available online today. The 25 guides so far range from general – “PubPeer commenting best practices” – to field-specific – like spotting issues with X-ray diffraction patterns.
Although 15 sleuths are named as contributors on the project, those we talked to emphasized the project should be largely credited to Reese Richardson, the author of the preprint.
Richardson, a metascience researcher at Northwestern University, told us the motivation behind the project was to “affirm that anyone can do post-publication peer review, especially working scientists.”
“We wanted to demonstrate how far just a few tidbits of specialized knowledge — like how to check energy dispersive X-ray spectra, what to look for in cases of suspected plagiarism and what softwares are available for image forensics — can go towards spotting integrity issues in the scientific literature,” Richardson said.
. . .