The peer-review process provides an opportunity for clinicians and scientists to train their fellows and postgraduate students as part of a one-on-one journal-club exercise. Supervisors can assess students' critical thinking and writing skills early in their careers. Consider these ten steps to teach the art of reviewing.

1) Explain how to proceed with a peer review, stressing the importance of respecting confidentiality and the rules of the journal or grant body.

2) Establish a submission deadline. The review process should take up to three hours. Set a time for final discussion before the deadline, allowing both student and supervisor time to read and review the work.

3) Adopt the right mindset. Don't accept the manuscript 'as is', and don't be hypercritical. The student might imagine that it's their own manuscript about to be rejected, and that they have the opportunity to improve it.

4) Read the manuscript once, taking rudimentary notes.

5) Follow the journal-specific author and reviewer instructions. Note those pertaining to the category of the manuscript, the word length, abstract structure and the format for references, figures and tables.

6) Verify each citation with PubMed or similar — which also gives you a chance to read generally on the topic. Highlighting minor citation errors shows that the paper has been read thoroughly. Ask the following: does the submitted work complement or duplicate the authors' and others' previous work?

7) Re-read the manuscript armed with the specific author instructions and good background knowledge.

8) Write the review envisaging that the editor is too busy to read the manuscript in-depth. Summarize the key features in a paragraph, stating the topic of the paper, what was performed, the key conclusions drawn, why this is important, and why this is a novel contribution. Strengths or problems with the manuscript or methodology should then be detailed.

9) Write all comments as if they will be seen by the authors. Although most reviewers are anonymous, caution students that a disgruntled author could recognize one's spelling variances, grammar or clichés.

10) Submit the review, telling the editor the review was written with a student and that you agree with their assessment. Show the student the submitted review as well as the editor's and other reviewers' comments.