Requesting Peer Review

Subject a drafted manuscript to structured review before submission. Two passes: constructive (strengthen the argument, improve clarity) and adversarial (find holes, challenge assumptions). Each pass is a fresh subagent with the manuscript and relevant sources — no conversation history pollution.

Announce at start: "Using requesting-peer-review on <manuscript path>."

If unmet: explain to the user which condition is missing, ask for a short reason, write it to knowledge/_meta/gate-overrides.log, and close out. Closing a review with open Major Issues is a deliberate decision, not an oversight — the reason in the log makes that traceable. </SOFT-GATE>

When to use

• A manuscript QMD file exists under output/ and has rendered successfully
• Before sending to an external reviewer, before submission, before grant deadline
• After major revision, to re-check whether open issues were addressed

NOT for: first-draft feedback (use drafting-manuscript's architecture and per-section stops), copy-editing (separate task), single-paragraph checks.

Checklist

1. Confirm target manuscript and render status (make render must succeed)
2. Identify discipline — Theologie, Biblische Archäologie, Alte Geschichte, Digital Humanities, Mixed Methods — each has specific review criteria
3. Select reporting standard — CONSORT (RCT), STROBE (observational), MRC Framework (complex interventions), PRISMA (systematic review), ARRIVE (animal), TRIPOD (prediction models); discipline-specific: stratigraphic documentation (archaeology), Formkritik/Quellenkritik (theology), source criticism (DH)
4. Dispatch constructive reviewer subagent (see agents/peer-reviewer.md) with role constructive
5. Dispatch adversarial reviewer subagent (fresh context) with role adversarial
6. Collate reviews into a single output/<target>/reviews/<date>-review.md document
7. Classify each issue: Major / Minor / Editorial / Out-of-scope
8. Walk the user through each Major and Minor — decision: accept → revise, reject (with rationale), defer (with log)
9. Log decisions in knowledge/_meta/log.md, one line per pass, in this exact shape — lint-wiki.py's HALF-REVIEW gate reads it, and an unlogged pass is an unverifiable claim that the review happened:

   ## [YYYY-MM-DD] review | constructive | <one-line verdict>
   ## [YYYY-MM-DD] review | adversarial | <one-line verdict>

   If a pass is skipped, log it anyway with the deciding reason (review | adversarial | SKIPPED — <reason>, decided by <who>). The gate then still reports the gap, which is correct: the manuscript went out on half a review, and the record should say so.
10. If accepted issues → revisions needed: route back to drafting-manuscript with issue list

Process Flow

digraph peer_review {
    "Confirm manuscript + render" [shape=box];
    "Identify discipline" [shape=box];
    "Select reporting standard(s)" [shape=box];
    "Dispatch constructive reviewer" [shape=box];
    "Dispatch adversarial reviewer" [shape=box];
    "Collate reviews" [shape=box];
    "Classify issues" [shape=box];
    "Walk issues with user" [shape=box];
    "Any major open?" [shape=diamond];
    "Route to drafting-manuscript (revision)" [shape=box];
    "Log decisions" [shape=box];
    "Done" [shape=doublecircle];

    "Confirm manuscript + render" -> "Identify discipline";
    "Identify discipline" -> "Select reporting standard(s)";
    "Select reporting standard(s)" -> "Dispatch constructive reviewer";
    "Select reporting standard(s)" -> "Dispatch adversarial reviewer";
    "Dispatch constructive reviewer" -> "Collate reviews";
    "Dispatch adversarial reviewer" -> "Collate reviews";
    "Collate reviews" -> "Classify issues";
    "Classify issues" -> "Walk issues with user";
    "Walk issues with user" -> "Any major open?";
    "Any major open?" -> "Route to drafting-manuscript (revision)" [label="yes"];
    "Route to drafting-manuscript (revision)" -> "Dispatch constructive reviewer" [label="after revision"];
    "Any major open?" -> "Log decisions" [label="no"];
    "Log decisions" -> "Done";
}

Reviewer Assignment

Two subagents, FRESH context each:

Constructive reviewer (agents/peer-reviewer.md, role: constructive):

• Goal: improve the argument, clarify, strengthen
• Tone: supportive senior colleague
• Prompts: "Where is the argument weakest but most important?" "What evidence would strengthen Claim X?" "What does the reader need that isn't here?"

Adversarial reviewer (same skill, role: adversarial):

• Goal: find holes, challenge interpretations, flag methodological gaps
• Tone: rigorous external reviewer (Reviewer 2)
• Prompts: "Which claim is inadequately supported?" "What alternative explanation isn't addressed?" "Which sources are missing?" "Is the statistical/stratigraphic/philological method defensible?"

Both subagents receive:

• The manuscript file
• The relevant synthesis and source pages (paths listed)
• The selected reporting standard(s)
• The research plan's Hypothesis + Falsification Criteria
• A blank structured template for their report

Review Report Template

Saved to output/<target>/reviews/<YYYY-MM-DD>-<role>-review.md:

---
title: "<Role> Review — <Manuscript>"
reviewer: <subagent-id>
role: constructive | adversarial
date: YYYY-MM-DD
manuscript: <path>
reporting_standard: <CONSORT|STROBE|...|discipline-specific>
---

## Summary
<2–3 sentences: overall impression>

## Major Issues
1. **<Issue>** — <why it matters, where it lives (section/line), suggested resolution>
...

## Minor Issues
...

## Editorial
(typos, unclear phrasing, citation format)

## Methodological Assessment
<assessment against the selected reporting standard>

## Falsification Test
Quantitative/mixed: does the manuscript honestly engage with the pre-registered falsification criteria? Hermeneutic: does it state what evidence or reading would refute its thesis, and engage it? If no, flag.

Critical Thinking — Evidence Audit for Reviewers

Both reviewer roles (constructive and adversarial) apply the evidence framework before any substantive assessment:

1. Make the claim explicit — what exactly is being claimed, in one sentence?
2. Evidence type — primary data, secondary synthesis, expert opinion, theoretical argument
3. Choose the framework:
   • GRADE — causal / quantitative claims
   • Cochrane ROB — experimental designs
   • Quellenkritik — textual-historical evidence (form, redaction, textual criticism)
   • Stratigraphic reliability — archaeological findings
   • Reproducibility audit — DH / computational
4. Confounders — which alternative explanations does the manuscript NOT discuss?
5. Logical fallacies — ad hominem, affirming the consequent, equivocation, cherry-picking, generalisation from single finds
6. Falsification test — would the author acknowledge what would refute the thesis, and engage it honestly?

Adversarial reviewers may apply this checklist more harshly (Reviewer 2); constructive reviewers name gaps constructively with a suggested improvement.

Grading-note template (optional appendix to the review report):

## Evidence Grading — <Claim>

**Claim:** <exact statement from the manuscript>
**Framework:** GRADE | Cochrane ROB | Quellenkritik | Stratigraphic | Reproducibility
**Evidence type:** <primary / secondary / theoretical>
**Grade:** strong | moderate | weak | very weak
**Rationale:** Design, Bias, Precision, Consistency, Directness — short
**Confounders addressed in manuscript:** <yes/no, which>
**Logical fallacies:** <list or none>
**Falsifiability:** <testable / not testable>

Discipline-Specific Checklists

Source: research-skills/peer-review/references/ has general checklists. Add:

Biblical Archaeology / Ancient History:

• Stratigraphy documented with Locus/Stratum references
• Ceramic typology tied to named sequences (e.g. Iron IIA, IIB)
• 14C dates with lab numbers and calibration method
• Terminological consistency (Levantine Iron Age vs. Iron II, etc.)

Theology / Biblical Studies:

• Textual basis named (MT / LXX / DSS / Peshitta) with critical edition
• Formgeschichte / Redaktionsgeschichte method stated
• Engagement with German-language scholarship where relevant
• Hermeneutical stance transparent

Digital Humanities:

• Dataset provenance + license
• Reproducibility: code + data availability statement
• Tools and versions named
• Limitations of method explicit

MCP Optimisation (recommended)

If dao-paper-search-mcp and dao-searxng-mcp (see docs/recommended-mcps.md) are available in the project, use them for the Cited Evidence Audit section of the review report. Otherwise, do the spot-checks manually (open the full text, compare the claim with the original passage).

Extended Cited Evidence Audit (5 spot-checks) with MCP:

• For each cited DOI: dao-paper-search-mcp.search_crossref(query=<doi>) or equivalent adapter, checking that the hit's identifiers.doi is that DOI; compare inline_citation.authoritative_bibliography_line from the MCP response against the manuscript bibliography — discrepancies are Major Issues.
• For web citations (online sources): dao-searxng-mcp.fetch_url(url=...) and check source_class. Aggregator or suspect classification without an explanatory note in the manuscript is at minimum a Minor Issue.
• If no MCPs are available: drop the source_class column; do spot-checks by hand.

Red Flags

Key Principles

• Two passes, fresh context each — constructive + adversarial, kept separate
• Discipline-specific checklist — no universal template
• Falsification check — quantitative: honest engagement with the pre-registered hypothesis; hermeneutic: the manuscript says what would refute its thesis
• Classify before revising — Major / Minor / Editorial / Out-of-scope before editing
• Log per decision — accepted / rejected / deferred all documented