Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to reveal a symbol – “however” that authors are very interested in, but few research studies pay attention to the existing literature. The authors aim to further insight its function.

Design/methodology/approach

In this research, the authors selected 3,329 valid comments on articles published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) from 2015 to 2020 as the research objects. The authors showed the length distribution of reviewers' comments. In what follows, the authors analyzed the general distribution of words in comments and reviewer comments’ position to understand reviewers' comments qualitatively in word dimension. Specially, the authors analyzed functions of “however” and “but”, words that authors are most concerned with. In addition, the authors also discussed some factors, which may be related to “however,” that reflect reviewers' praise through regression analysis.

Findings

The authors found that there are marked differences in the length of reviewers' comments under different review rounds. By mapping the reviewers' comments to different sections, the authors found that reviewers are deeply concerned to methods section. Adjectives and adverbs in comments written in different sections of the manuscripts also have different characteristics. The authors tried to interpret the turning function of “however” in scientific communication. Its frequency of use is related to reviewers' identities, specifically academic status. More precisely, junior researchers use “however” in praise more frequently than senior researchers do.

Research limitations/implications

The linguistic feature and function of “however” and “but” in the reviewers' comments of the rejected manuscripts may be different from accepted papers and also worth exploring. Regrettably, the authors cannot obtain the peer review comments of rejected manuscripts. This point may limit the conclusion of the investigation of this article.

Originality/value

Overall, the survey results revealed some language features of reviewers' comments, which could provide a basis of future endeavors for many reviewers in open peer review (OPR) field. Specially, the authors also put forward an interesting symbol to examine the review comments, “however”, for the first time.

中文翻译：

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“然而，这篇文章很有趣”：探索在 BMJ 上发表的文章的同行评审评论中的语言使用

目的

本文的目的是揭示一个符号——“然而”，作者非常感兴趣，但很少有研究关注现有文献。作者旨在进一步了解其功能。

设计/方法/方法

在本研究中，作者选取了 2015 年至 2020 年在英国医学杂志（BMJ）上发表的文章的 3329 条有效评论作为研究对象。作者展示了审稿人评论的长度分布。在下文中，作者分析了评论中单词的一般分布和审稿人评论的位置，以从单词维度上定性地理解审稿人的评论。作者特别分析了作者最关心的“但是”和“但是”的功能。此外，作者还讨论了一些可能与“但是”有关的因素，这些因素通过回归分析反映了审稿人的好评。

发现

作者发现，不同审稿轮次下审稿人的评论长度存在显着差异。通过将审稿人的评论映射到不同的部分，作者发现审稿人非常关注方法部分。稿件不同部分所写评论中的形容词和副词也有不同的特点。作者试图解读“然而”在科学传播中的转向功能。它的使用频率与审稿人的身份有关，特别是学术地位。更准确地说，初级研究人员比高级研究人员更频繁地使用“但是”来表扬。

研究限制/影响

被拒稿件的审稿人意见中的“但是”和“但是”的语言特征和功能可能与接受的论文有所不同，也值得探讨。遗憾的是，作者无法获得被拒稿件的同行评审意见。这一点可能会限制本文调查的结论。

原创性/价值

总体而言，调查结果揭示了审稿人评论的一些语言特征，这可以为许多审稿人在开放同行评审（OPR）领域的未来努力提供基础。特别是，作者还首次提出了一个有趣的符号来审查评论评论，“然而”。