It's More a Crash-Course, On-the-Job Training Thing

Out on the blogosphere, someone wondered what sort of formal training scientists have as reviewers of  papers and grants. In response, blogger DrugMonkey writes that informal training through journal clubs and good mentoring could suffice for learning how to review a manuscript, adding that formal training "would run the risk of being so general … as to be useless." But training for grant review, is, in DrugMonkey's experience, lacking. "It strikes me that a little more training of scientists in how to review applications would go a long way toward reducing the variance in review," writes DrugMonkey.