Generally, when we talk about peer review we mean pre-publication review, which is performed by an expert in the field after being invited by a journal editor. In below, you can see the major steps of a typical peer- review workflow.    

• Author(s) submits manuscript: an author decides on a journal to submit their manuscript to, checks the journal's website for format and instructions, and then submits their manuscript.

• Editor screens manuscript: an editor does an initial assessment of the manuscript to make sure it aligns with the aims and scope of the journal, if its quality is very poor or if it does not align with the journal's requirements it can be rejected at this stage.

• The Manuscript is sent for peer review: if the manuscript passes an editor's initial screening then the editor will look for experts in the research field, screen them for potential conflicts of interest, and then invite them to review the manuscript.

• Peer review: the manuscript is sent to 2-3 peers who are experts in the topic of the manuscript, they check that the methodology and results are sound, and write a report with everything that the authors need to address before the paper can be published.

• Editorial decision: the editor receives the peer reviewers' reports and their recommendation and makes a decision, either the paper needs to be revised and resubmitted where the editor and the same or new reviewers will check the manuscript again, or it will be accepted or rejected.