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Critical Review · editorial triage, reviewer critique, and reader appraisal
Critical Review

Critical manuscript appraisal for editors, reviewers, and readers.

Critical Review is in early access. It is designed to help editors, reviewers, and readers assess study design, analysis, and conclusions. Join early access for updates about this separate workflow.

Structured decision support, not a substitute for editorial judgment, peer review, independent statistical review, or a complete literature search. Join early access; this page does not start a paid review or collect a manuscript.
Risk-based disposition estimateJournal-fit assessmentReanalysis riskReader reliability

§01 Choose the review mode

The same PDF can raise different questions depending on whether you are handling a submission, drafting a peer-review critique, or reading a published paper for clinical use. Critical Review will keep those outputs separate and will open as a distinct report workflow rather than a hidden variant of the standard review.

Editorial Triage Reviewtarget journal required

The full workflow will use this for journal-fit and evidentiary-standard appraisal. Analytics receives only the selected mode.

Expected output
  • Risk-based disposition estimate framed as editorial triage, not a final decision.
  • Journal-fit assessment against audience, article type, scope, novelty expectations, clinical relevance, and methodological bar.
  • Prioritized must-fix list split by validity, statistics, reporting, interpretation, journal fit, and minor editorial issues.
  • Explicit reanalysis flag and a concise reviewer-facing summary.
Controlled rollout. Critical Review is a mode-specific workflow under development. The current public checkout remains the standard RigorMD manuscript validation product; this early-access request does not start a paid review or upload a manuscript.

§02 What the report is designed to surface

Editorial triage
A recommended editorial triage category, 0-100 structured risk/readiness score, journal-fit read, major blockers, and reanalysis flag. The category is an estimate for human review, not an editorial decision.
Peer-review critique
Numbered major comments, minor comments, required revisions, possible fatal flaws, journal appropriateness, and suggested reviewer wording that stays grounded in the manuscript.
Published-paper reader
Reliability rating, strengths, weaknesses, clinical and scientific takeaways, place-in-literature framing with limits, and a journal club bottom line.

§03 The structured checklist

Each mode will examine manuscript methods and present the proposed output for its reader's role.

One question runs through every area: fit between the manuscript text, reported methods, available results, and the claim being made. When the PDF lacks the needed detail, the report says not assessable rather than guessing.

  • Study design clarity
  • Population and eligibility
  • Exposure/intervention definition
  • Outcome definition
  • Comparator/control definition
  • Confounding control
  • Missing data
  • Model specification
  • Clustering/hierarchical structure
  • Multiplicity
  • Power/sample size
  • Effect estimates and precision
  • Tables/figures consistency
  • Abstract accuracy
  • Discussion overclaiming
  • Ethics/IRB/data source transparency
  • References and literature positioning

§04 Outputs stay role-specific

Must-fix groups
  • Validity-threatening issues
  • Statistical and reanalysis issues
  • Reporting and transparency issues
  • Interpretation and overclaiming issues
  • Journal-fit or framing issues
  • Minor editorial issues
Reanalysis flag
  • No reanalysis apparent
  • Targeted reanalysis recommended
  • Major reanalysis likely required
  • Analysis not assessable from PDF alone
Reader takeaways
  • Practice-changing
  • Practice-informing
  • Hypothesis-generating only
  • No clear clinical action
Limits are part of the product. Critical Review is designed to structure a triage estimate, critique, or reader appraisal from the PDF and information supplied. It will not make the journal decision, stand in for peer review, establish novelty, provide clinical treatment advice, or resolve questions that require unavailable data or a live literature search.
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