Abstract:  Peer review stays a hot topic in scholarly discussions of the mechanism of academic appraisal. However, review by “non-peer”, which is actually widely practiced in peer review process, has not been granted sufficient attention. In response to this phenomenon, we raise and address the following three questions here: first, could we effectively avoid review by non-peers? second, what are the major drawbacks of this alternative to peer review in a strict sense? And third, what we might do to become a “good” non-peer reviewer?
For a long time, the academic community has not stopped asking questions about peer review, but there is no better way to replace it. Therefore, scholars have been paying attention to improving peer review methods, such as the characteristics of good peer reviewers? How to screen out a good peer reviewer?And how to control the unfair behavior of peer reviewers? These studies are very meaningful, but in many cases, we cannot find the true peers of the review anyway, so some American scholars say that peer review is “a science that is difficult to have peers”. That is to say, although we are collectively referred to as peer review when we are reviewing scientific research topics and research results, in fact, there are a large number of non-peer reviews in many situations. Therefore, paying attention to and discussing the phenomenon of non-peer reviewers is an issue that cannot be ignored in ensuring the quality and effectiveness of the review.
The “peer” in the peer review, the English word is “Peer”, which means people with the same qualifications and abilities. British scholars Gibbon and George believe that “peer review is a synonym for the scientific value of research work in this field by scientists in the field or scientists in the vicinity”. If the “area” in the definition is identified as a peer, then “proximity” or “equivalent, same ability” is considered to be a quasi-peer or non-peer. Therefore, although we strive to make peer review a reality, non-peer review becomes an inevitable universal phenomenon due to the ambiguity of peer definition and some reasons.
Although peer review is not peer-reviewed in many cases, whether it is the review of the organizer or the applicant, the reviewer is regarded as a peer, industry expert or authority. What is even more frightening is that some commentators regard themselves as true industry authority. In fact, they may be a certain degree of non-peer, or even a full-time layman, and the result will lead to many misevaluations. This is an important reason why some academic journals and fund projects have not achieved satisfactory results in recent years. Since we inevitably invite non-peer or some lay commentators, it is important to choose a good non-peer reviewer. A good non-peer commentator, typically characterized as a non-peer or a layman, is judged by the paradigm of the field in which the person is being evaluated, and not necessarily the paradigm he is familiar with. Many facts prove that the reasons for non-peer reviewers to make misevaluations are mostly not due to their limited professional knowledge, but because they use their well-known paradigms to evaluate scientific research in other fields. 

Key words:  peer review, anonymous review, academic appraisal