Conceptual debates and empirical evidence about the peer review process for scholarly journals.

Until recently, nursing scholars have seldom questioned the underlying premises of peer review, nor have they engaged in the conceptual debates about the peer review process. In this article, literature from a wide range of nursing and nonnursing journals was examined to provide an overview of (a) the conceptual debates and (b) the empirical evidence about the peer review process in scholarly journals. A multiplicity of questions for future research are proposed. 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.