Picking the wrong reviewer wastes weeks and can force a second round of review. This free tool checks your reviewer list against your author list and flags the overlaps that matter: the same institution, the same surname, and anyone already listed as a co-author. It runs entirely in your browser, so no names leave your computer.
What the tool does
Editors and guest editors usually hold two lists in their heads: who could review this paper, and who must not. This tool puts both lists side by side and checks every reviewer-author pair. It flags three things. First, a shared institution, which is the most common reason a review is declined or later questioned. Second, a shared surname, which often means a family link or simply a name worth a second look. Third, a reviewer who appears on the authors’ known co-author list, which usually signals a recent collaboration. The result is a simple table, one row per pair, with flags or a clear “No flag” note.
How to use it
Write one person per line in each box, using the format Name | Institution. Paste your candidate reviewers in the first box and the paper’s authors in the second. If you know the authors’ recent collaborators, paste them in the third box too; this catches conflicts that the institution check alone would miss. Press the button and read the table. Start with the flagged rows, and check each one by hand before you act on it.
Worked example
Suppose your reviewers are Maria Chen at Stanford and Ahmed Hassan at MIT, and your authors are Maria Chen at Oxford and Li Wei at Stanford. The tool flags Maria Chen against the author Maria Chen for a shared surname, and Li Wei against reviewer Maria Chen for a shared institution, Stanford. It also flags Ahmed Hassan if he appears on the co-author list. In this small example, only one pairing is completely clean. That is exactly the kind of result that saves an embarrassing invitation email.
Reading the results honestly
A flag is a prompt, not a verdict. Two people can share a surname and never have met. Two people at a large university may work in unrelated departments. And a co-author from ten years ago is not the same as a co-author from last year. Use the flags to order your checks: confirm the institution match, ask whether the collaboration is recent, and only then decide. When in doubt, pick a different reviewer. There are always more qualified readers than there are slots.
Honest limits
This tool cannot see private relationships, unpublished collaborations, or conflicts that live outside the text you paste. It does not check publication databases, and it cannot tell you whether a reviewer is biased for or against a topic. It also matches names exactly as typed, so spelling differences will hide a match. Treat it as a first screen, and keep the final decision with a human editor who knows the field.
Practical tips for editors
Run the check before you send any invitation, not after a reviewer accepts, because withdrawing an invitation is awkward and sometimes impossible. Keep a private note of every flagged pair and why you cleared or excluded it, so a later question from an author or publisher has an answer. Re-run the check if the author list changes during revision, since new authors bring new conflicts. For large special issues, check reviewers in batches rather than one paper at a time, and reuse the same author and co-author lists across papers from the same group. Finally, remember that the absence of a flag is not clearance: a reviewer can still be unsuitable because of a competing paper, a personal dispute, or a workload that guarantees a late review. The matrix organises the obvious conflicts; your judgement covers the rest.
Related tools
Spanish version: Evaluador de Matriz de Conflictos de Revisores Gratis y Online: Sin Registro · All free online tools.
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