# How to Respond to an Unethical Review Request: A Script By the end of this guide, you will be able to classify a peer review invitation in under five minutes, decline it with a short professional message when that is the right call, and respond with a firm, documented script when the request itself crosses an ethical line. You need only three things on hand: the original invitation email, your calendar for the next eight weeks, and the email address of the journal's editor-in-chief or your institution's research integrity contact. No special software is involved, though logging your decision in a simple spreadsheet or note-taking app will pay off the first time a dispute arises. ## Why a Clean Decline Matters Peer review depends on a small pool of unpaid volunteers. Survey data show reviewers accept primarily out of scholarly duty and loyalty to a journal, and they decline primarily because of time pressure or insufficient expertise [1]. When researchers at a Spanish public health journal tracked 1,775 invitations sent to 773 potential reviewers, 22.3 percent of requests were declined, and 88.1 percent of those declines cited lack of time or lack of relevant experience [2]. A survey of transplant physicians found the same pattern, with lack of time as the most common reason for saying no [3]. So the first thing to internalize is that declining is normal. Even at a major medical journal, 55 percent of reviewers approached during a randomized trial declined the invitation [4]. In a 2024 study, six senior academic physicians received 139 unsolicited review solicitations in roughly three and a half months, accepted only 3 of them (2.3 percent), declined 77 (55.4 percent), and simply ignored 59 (42.4 percent) [5]. Agreement rates in ecology journals have stayed roughly stable or slipped only slightly over a decade, which tells you editors keep working with, not against, a partially declining reviewer pool [6]. Here is the part most researchers miss. Ignoring a request is worse than declining it. When you go silent, an editor waits through the system's deadline, sends reminders, and loses weeks. A one-paragraph decline takes sixty seconds and frees the editor to find someone else the same day. Surveyed reviewers themselves recognize reviewing as a professional responsibility and an opportunity to contribute, which is why a courteous decline preserves exactly the reputation a silent decline erodes [7]. The ethics dimension is different. Some requests are not merely inconvenient. They ask you to do something that violates [research ethics](/blog/guides/research-ethics-fundamentals-a-practical-guide-for-early-career-scientists), and those require a response, not silence, and often a report, not just a decline. ## What Makes a Review Request Unethical Most requests are legitimate. A smaller group is problematic, and a small subgroup is flatly unethical. Learn the patterns so you can classify quickly. ### The six patterns to recognize 1. **Citation coercion.** The editor or a reviewer suggests, or requires, that the manuscript cite specific papers, typically from the requester's own group, as a condition of favorable handling. Citation demands unrelated to the manuscript's scientific content are a recognized form of review abuse. 2. **Conflict of interest concealment.** You are invited to review work by a close collaborator, a colleague at your own institution, a former mentor, or a direct competitor, and the editor either missed it or expects you to stay quiet. Reviewing such a manuscript compromises both the journal and you. 3. **Confidentiality breach by default.** The invitation, or a follow-up, assumes you will share the manuscript with a graduate student, a lab group, a journal club, or a colleague "who knows this area better." Manuscripts under review are confidential. Passing them along without the editor's written permission violates every journal's reviewer agreement. 4. **Pressure on your identity or independence.** Someone asks you to soften or sharpen a recommendation based on who the authors are, or hints that your career depends on a favorable report. A narrative ethics review of forensic pathology cases identified loss of independence and adversarial alignment as recurrent vulnerabilities that undermine public trust in expert review [8]. 5. **Out-of-scope requests presented as favors.** You are asked to review something far outside your published expertise because "you are reliable." Surveyed reviewers name insufficient expertise as a top reason for declining, because a competent review is an ethical duty, not a courtesy [1][2]. 6. **Uncompensated overload dressed as opportunity.** Volume alone is not unethical, but the background is relevant to responsible conduct of research. In one study, most unsolicited requests to senior reviewers came from journals the reviewer had no prior relationship with, and more than 70 percent were only partially relevant or irrelevant [5]. Surveys of grant review found that only 7 percent of reviewers received protected time from their institutions, even while funding organizations ranked declined requests among their most frequent problems [9]. A system that depends on your unpaid evenings has no standing to demand unconditional yes. The key distinction: declining a legitimate request is a scheduling decision. Declining an unethical request is an integrity decision, and the two calls use different scripts. ## A Three-Question Test Before You Answer ![A yes or no path through competence, conflict of interest and unethical conditions, ending in accept, decline or decline and report.](/article-images/illustrations/decline-peer-review-request-three-question-test.webp) Before writing anything, answer three questions in order. 1. **Can I do this competently by the deadline?** If the methods or subject area fall outside what you publish and review routinely, the honest answer is no. This alone justifies most declines. 2. **Do I have a conflict of interest?** Collaborations within roughly the last few years, same-department colleagues, mentor-mentee relationships, and direct competition over the same question all count. If yes, you decline regardless of how good the manuscript sounds. 3. **Does the request itself ask me to do something unethical?** Citation demands, confidentiality workarounds, identity pressure, or requests to review outside any declared policy. If yes, you decline, document, and usually escalate. Question three is what the rest of this article equips you for. ## How to Decline a Peer Review Request Step by Step The decline peer review request format below works across every major submission system, whether the invitation arrived through ScholarOne, Editorial Manager, or a plain email. Follow the five steps in order. ### Step 1. Classify the request Open the invitation and sort it into one of the table rows. | Situation | Core message | Key phrase to use | Extra step | |, - |, - |, - |, - | | No time | Decline, offer future availability | "I am unable to take this on at this time" | Suggest a month you could review | | Outside expertise | Decline, protect review quality | "This falls outside my published expertise" | Suggest one or two named experts | | Conflict of interest | Decline immediately, no exceptions | "I have a conflict of interest and must decline" | Confirm you have not opened the files | | Unethical condition | Decline, name the problem, report it | "I cannot meet the condition stated in the request" | Report to editor-in-chief and log everything | | Already agreed, then conflict | Withdraw as soon as you find out | "I must withdraw from this review" | Return or destroy any files received | | Editor pressure after declining | Restate the decline once | "My answer remains no" | Escalate to the editor-in-chief | ### Step 2. Pick the matching template Copy the template below into a plain email or the system's comment box. A decline peer review request example should stay under 150 words, because long explanations read as negotiation. **Template A: Time conflict** ```text Subject: Review request, Manuscript [ID number]: decline Dear Dr. [Editor's surname], Thank you for the invitation to review Manuscript [number], "[short title]." I am unable to take this on at this time because of existing commitments, including [a manuscript revision due DATE / a grant deadline on DATE]. I expect to have reviewing capacity again in [month], and I would welcome an invitation then. Two colleagues who may be well suited: [Name, institution] and [Name, institution]. Thank you for your understanding. Kind regards, [Your name, degree, institution] ``` **Template B: Outside expertise** ```text Subject: Review request, Manuscript [ID number]: decline Dear Dr. [Editor's surname], Thank you for thinking of me for Manuscript [number]. The central methods in this manuscript, specifically [method, e.g., [single-cell RNA sequencing](/knowledge/bioinformatics/single-cell-rna-sequencing-from-bulk-to-resolution) analysis], fall outside my published expertise, and I do not believe I could provide a review that meets the standard your authors deserve. I am declining rather than reviewing it superficially. I suggest [Name, institution] or [Name, institution], who work directly in this area. Kind regards, [Your name] ``` **Template C: Conflict of interest** ```text Subject: Review request, Manuscript [ID number]: decline (conflict of interest) Dear Dr. [Editor's surname], I am declining this invitation because I have a conflict of interest: the first author and I [coauthored a paper in YEAR / are in the same department at / collaborate on funded work in this area]. I have not opened, downloaded, or read any of the manuscript files. Please remove the assignment from my account. Kind regards, [Your name] ``` **Template D: Unethical condition** This is the script for the situation the article title names. Adapt the bracketed description to what actually happened. ```text Subject: Review request, Manuscript [ID number]: decline and concern Dear Dr. [Editor's surname], Thank you for the invitation to review Manuscript [number]. Before accepting, I must flag a condition in the request that I cannot meet. The invitation states that my review should take into account the need to cite [number] additional papers from [your group / a named laboratory]. I do not consider citation demands of this kind part of peer review, and agreeing to one would compromise my independent assessment of the science. I am therefore declining the manuscript. I will keep a record of this exchange, and I am reporting the request separately to [the editor-in-chief / the publisher's research integrity contact], because it appears inconsistent with responsible conduct of research. Kind regards, [Your name] ``` The expected output of any of these templates is a short reply from the editorial office, typically within a few business days, confirming the reassignment and sometimes thanking you. If you receive nothing within a week, check the submission system for a status change, since many systems close the task automatically without email. ### Step 3. Adapt the wording, then verify before sending Make three checks before you hit send. - Confirm the manuscript ID number matches, because editors juggle dozens of assignments and a wrong number creates real confusion. - Delete every sentence that explains your feelings. A decline peer review request template survives precisely because it is boring. - If the request was unethical, quote the exact sentence from the invitation rather than paraphrasing it. Your record should let a third party judge the exchange without guessing. ### Step 4. Escalate when the request itself was the problem Declining an unethical request addresses your own exposure. It does not address the next reviewer who receives the same invitation. Escalation is a separate, short message. ```text Subject: Concern about a review request from [handling editor's name] Dear Professor [Editor-in-chief's surname], On [date] I received a review invitation from [handling editor] for Manuscript [number]. The invitation included the following condition: "[quote the exact sentence]." I declined on [date] and have not accessed the manuscript. I am writing to bring this to your attention because requests of this kind undermine the integrity of the review process. I have attached the original message with headers intact. I am happy to discuss further if useful. Respectfully, [Your name, institution] ``` If the unethical behavior came from the editor-in-chief rather than a handling editor, route the report to the journal's publisher or ombuds contact, or to your institution's research integrity officer. Keep the original email, with full headers, in a folder you can find months later. Investigations often begin long after the exchange, and your dated record is the evidence. ### Step 5. Log the decision Add one row to a running log with five columns: date, journal, manuscript ID, decision, and reason category. The log takes seconds per entry and gives you three benefits. It shows you whether your review load is concentrated in one or two journals, which matters because loyalty to a journal is the strongest driver of reviewer acceptance [1]. It reminds you whom you suggested as alternates, which is a small professional courtesy you can extend without cost. And it documents patterns, so that if the same journal keeps sending unethical requests, you have a dated history rather than a memory. ## What to Do When You Already Said Yes Sometimes the ethical problem appears after acceptance. You open the manuscript and realize you know the authors, or you discover the data come from a group you are in active conflict with. The fix is immediate withdrawal. ```text Subject: Withdrawal from review, Manuscript [ID number] Dear Dr. [Editor's surname], I agreed to review Manuscript [number] on [date]. On reading it, I realized I have a conflict of interest I did not identify earlier: [one sentence of detail]. I withdraw from this review effective immediately. I have deleted the files I downloaded and will not use any information from the manuscript. I apologize for the inconvenience and would be glad to review for you on a future manuscript without a conflict. Kind regards, [Your name] ``` Two rules apply here. First, speed matters more than explanation, because the editor can reassign within days if you tell them now and loses the manuscript's slot if you tell them after the deadline. Second, once you withdraw, you treat the manuscript as unread. You do not cite its unpublished claims, assign a student to replicate its experiments, or discuss its findings. That obligation outlasts the review itself. This same spirit of candid, non-defensive communication applies on the author side of the exchange. Guidance on responding to reviewer comments emphasizes judgment over persistence, reading critiques with distance, and respecting the substantial time reviewers invest, which is the same respect you are asking for when you decline [10]. ## Common Mistakes and Limitations ![Three columns comparing going silent, over-explaining and a short decline across time cost, editor effect, confidentiality and record keeping.](/article-images/illustrations/decline-peer-review-request-silence-vs-decline.webp) **Going silent.** The single most common failure. In one prospective study of senior reviewers, 42.4 percent of solicitations were simply ignored [5]. Ignoring an invitation leaves an editor guessing, wastes the slot, and reads as less professional than any decline. **Over-explaining.** A five-paragraph justification invites negotiation. Two or three sentences close the conversation. **Agreeing and then missing the deadline.** Surveyed editors rank late reports among their most frequent process problems [9]. If you realize mid-review that you cannot finish, write immediately, return the manuscript unread if you have not made progress, and decline the next two invitations to rebalance. **Reviewing despite a conflict because "I can be objective."** The appearance of a conflict damages the journal as much as a real one. Decline. **Sharing the manuscript without permission.** Forwarding the PDF to a student or colleague without the editor's written approval breaches confidentiality. If a junior colleague could genuinely add value, ask the editor first, in writing, and follow whatever the reply authorizes. **Staying silent about misconduct.** Declining protects you. Reporting protects the next reviewer and the literature. The two actions serve different duties, and research ethics requires the second when the request itself was corrupt. **Keeping no records.** Without the original email and your dated reply, an escalation becomes your word against a screenshot the other side controls. Save everything. One limitation applies to everything above. Journal policies, institutional reporting channels, and the specifics of your situation vary, and any real conflict-of-interest or misconduct matter should be checked against your journal's reviewer guidelines and your institution's research integrity office before you act. The scripts here are starting points, not legal advice. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### Can I decline a peer review request without giving a reason? Yes. A simple "I am unable to take this on at this time" is complete and widely accepted. Editors find a stated reason useful for planning, which is why the template includes a short clause, but you are not obligated to disclose more than you wish. ### What counts as an unethical review request? A request that asks you to compromise independent judgment or confidentiality. Common forms include demanded citations to the requester's own work, invitations to review a conflicted manuscript, pressure to share the manuscript with others, and hints that your career depends on your recommendation. ### Is it unprofessional to decline a review at all? No. Declining is a routine and accepted part of the system, and roughly a fifth or more of invitations are declined in most journals [2]. Professionalism lies in declining promptly and courteously rather than in saying yes to everything. ### Can I hand the review to my graduate student or a colleague? Not without written permission from the editor. The reviewer agreement is between you and the journal, and the manuscript is confidential. Ask the editor to approve a co-reviewer by name, and if approved, follow the journal's rules on whether the co-reviewer's identity is disclosed. ### What if I already agreed and then discover a conflict of interest? Withdraw immediately using the template above, return or delete the files, and treat the manuscript as unread. Editors expect occasional late withdrawals and can reassign quickly if you tell them at once. ### How do I report an editor who sent an unethical request? Send a factual message to the editor-in-chief quoting the problematic sentence, attaching the original email with headers. If the editor-in-chief is the source of the problem, escalate to the publisher's research integrity contact or your institution's research integrity office. Keep copies of everything you send. ### Will declining damage my career or my relationship with a journal? A prompt, polite decline with a suggested alternate reviewer generally does no harm, and editors value reliable communication over unconditional yes. Repeated silence and missed deadlines do more reputational damage than any decline. ### Should I name the unethical behavior in my decline email to the editor? Yes, when the behavior came from that editor or a handling editor, name it plainly in one sentence, quote the request, and state that you are reporting it. If the problematic behavior came from an author rather than the editor, a simpler decline with a brief note of concern is sufficient, and the detailed report goes to the editor separately. ## Sources 1. [What Motivates Health Communication's Peer Reviewers to Review? A Survey of Our Scholarly Community.](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32423244/) 2. [Acceptance or decline of requests to review manuscripts: A gender-based approach from a public health journal.](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29390914/) 3. [Peer review in hematopoietic cell transplantation: are we doing our fair share?](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27159173/) 4. [Effect on peer review of telling reviewers that their signed reviews might be posted on the web: randomised controlled trial.](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21081600/) 5. [Bot-Tastic: Overload Burden of Unsolicited Peer Review Requests, Field of Expertise, and Narrative Hot-Takes.](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41839801/) 6. [Is it becoming harder to secure reviewers for peer review? A test with data from five ecology journals.](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29451554/) 7. [Peer reviewer survey for Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings.](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36578584/) 8. [When Forensic Pathology Fails: Ethical Lessons From International Regulatory, Judicial, and Historical Human-Rights Cases.](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42992540/) 9. [Surveys of current status in biomedical science grant review: funding organisations' and grant reviewers' perspectives.](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20961441/) 10. [Turning a Major Revision Request Into an Accepted Manuscript: How to Respond to Reviewers' Comments.](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41549524/)