Should reviewers of papers have their names published?

Editor—The article by Dimoliatis on whether reviewers should have their names published and the electronic responses to it discussed an interesting issue.¹,² We worked as student editors for our college magazine, which is but a small thing when considering the context of the current discussion. But we know how tiring the work seemed sometimes as we had to read every single article, understand the logic, and go to the depths before we could reject any article. It seemed as if sometimes we worked harder than the authors themselves.

As most of the journals follow a double blinded policy for review, we do not see any reason why a reviewer's name should not be included at the end. We agree that being a reviewer of a journal is an achievement in itself, but we could give more credit to reviewers for doing, what they sometimes might perceive as, a thankless job. To the question that more substandard articles would get published—well, we cannot police everything and everyone. Reviewers are persons of repute and holding high positions themselves. We are sure most would still be honest about their job and not just pass a paper because their name is published with it. On the contrary, their name is at stake if a substandard article passes through. This might actually make them work harder towards the standard and the value of the article they pass, and that they in a way guarantee.