Submited on: 04 Oct 2011 03:10:51 PM GMT
Published on: 05 Oct 2011 12:46:57 PM GMT
 

1 Is the subject of the article within the scope of the subject category? Yes
2 Are the interpretations / conclusions sound and justified by the data? Partly
3 Is this a new and original contribution? No
4 Does this paper exemplify an awareness of other research on the topic? Yes
5 Are structure and length satisfactory? No
6 Can you suggest brief additions or amendments or an introductory statement that will increase the value of this paper for an international audience? Yes
7 Can you suggest any reductions in the paper, or deletions of parts? Yes
8 Is the quality of the diction satisfactory? No
9 Are the illustrations and tables necessary and acceptable? No
10 Are the references adequate and are they all necessary? Yes
11 Are the keywords and abstract or summary informative? Yes
  • Other Comments:

    The manuscript by Gyande et al reports about the contamination of mobile phones. There are lot of studies reported in pubmed on this aspect. There is nothing new. However only difference I can see is that it was conducted in a University campus. Hence the title should reflect that.

                                              1. The manuscript is of poorly written and not suitable for publication. There are lot of typos and errors.

                                              2. There is no mentioning of the consent form in the study. Was the consent taken from the students for the above study.

                                              3. What was the age group of the students from whose mobiles the samples were collected.

                                              4. Any report about the anaerobic bacteria?

                                              5. Klebsiella pnemonia should be written as Klebsiella pneumoniae.

                                              6. Bacterial names are not written in italics

     I do not recommend to publish this article in it's current state.  

  • Competing interests:
    I have no competing interest to declare
  • Invited by the author to review this article? :
    No
  • Have you previously published on this or a similar topic?:
    No
  • References:
    None
  • Experience and credentials in the specific area of science:

    Microbiologist with 11 years of experience

  • How to cite:  Sainath Rao S .Bacterial Contamination of Mobile Phones: When Your Mobile Phone Could Transmit More Than Just a Call[Review of the article 'Bacterial Contamination of Mobile Phones: When Your Mobile Phone Could Transmit More Than Just a Call ' by Ansah E].WebmedCentral 2011;2(12):WMCRW001290
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1 Is the subject of the article within the scope of the subject category? Yes
2 Are the interpretations / conclusions sound and justified by the data? Yes
3 Is this a new and original contribution? No
4 Does this paper exemplify an awareness of other research on the topic? Yes
5 Are structure and length satisfactory? Yes
6 Can you suggest brief additions or amendments or an introductory statement that will increase the value of this paper for an international audience? No
7 Can you suggest any reductions in the paper, or deletions of parts? No
8 Is the quality of the diction satisfactory? Yes
9 Are the illustrations and tables necessary and acceptable? Yes
10 Are the references adequate and are they all necessary? Yes
11 Are the keywords and abstract or summary informative? Yes
  • Other Comments:

    there should be different groups for this study and respective tables.

  • Competing interests:
    no
  • Invited by the author to review this article? :
    No
  • Have you previously published on this or a similar topic?:
    No
  • References:
    None
  • Experience and credentials in the specific area of science:

    no

  • How to cite:  Singh B P.Bacterial contamination of mobile phones: when your mobile phone could transmit more than just a call[Review of the article 'Bacterial Contamination of Mobile Phones: When Your Mobile Phone Could Transmit More Than Just a Call ' by Ansah E].WebmedCentral 2011;2(10):WMCRW001016
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Bacterial Contamination of Mobile Phones
Posted by Dr. Thomas Herchline on 11 Oct 2011 12:05:04 PM GMT

1 Is the subject of the article within the scope of the subject category? Yes
2 Are the interpretations / conclusions sound and justified by the data? Partly
3 Is this a new and original contribution? Yes
4 Does this paper exemplify an awareness of other research on the topic? Yes
5 Are structure and length satisfactory? Yes
6 Can you suggest brief additions or amendments or an introductory statement that will increase the value of this paper for an international audience? No
7 Can you suggest any reductions in the paper, or deletions of parts? Yes
8 Is the quality of the diction satisfactory? No
9 Are the illustrations and tables necessary and acceptable? No
10 Are the references adequate and are they all necessary? Yes
11 Are the keywords and abstract or summary informative? Yes
  • Other Comments:

    This is an interesting article which mostly confirms the results of other published studies.

     

    There are gramatical errors throughout the article. In particular, it seems that some sentence fragments have been retained after editing occurred. As an example, in the abstract it is stated "Pathogenic isolates made up 81.8% of all isolates 18.2%."

     

    The authors conclude that periodic cleaning of mobile phones and frequent handwashing should be encouraged, but present no data on how these would impact the colonization of phones.

     

    The authors make no comparison of the organisms found in the current study to the organisms found in other similar studies.

     

    The first figure could be deleted with the data presented in the results text.

     

    The second figure would be more useful if the organisms were grouped (eg. gram negatives shown together and gram positives shown together).

  • Competing interests:
    None
  • Invited by the author to review this article? :
    No
  • Have you previously published on this or a similar topic?:
    No
  • References:
    None
  • Experience and credentials in the specific area of science:

    Infectious Diseases Physician; academic interest in Public Health

  • How to cite:  Herchline T .Bacterial Contamination of Mobile Phones[Review of the article 'Bacterial Contamination of Mobile Phones: When Your Mobile Phone Could Transmit More Than Just a Call ' by Ansah E].WebmedCentral 2011;2(10):WMCRW001004
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1 Is the subject of the article within the scope of the subject category? Yes
2 Are the interpretations / conclusions sound and justified by the data? Yes
3 Is this a new and original contribution? Yes
4 Does this paper exemplify an awareness of other research on the topic? Yes
5 Are structure and length satisfactory? Yes
6 Can you suggest brief additions or amendments or an introductory statement that will increase the value of this paper for an international audience? No
7 Can you suggest any reductions in the paper, or deletions of parts? No
8 Is the quality of the diction satisfactory? Yes
9 Are the illustrations and tables necessary and acceptable? Yes
10 Are the references adequate and are they all necessary? Yes
11 Are the keywords and abstract or summary informative? Yes
  • Other Comments:

    It is a good paper.

  • Invited by the author to review this article? :
    No
  • Have you previously published on this or a similar topic?:
    No
  • References:
    None
  • Experience and credentials in the specific area of science:

    I worked for 19 years in a Hospital Health Microbiology.

  • How to cite:  Garcia G .Bacterial Contamination of Mobile Phones: When Your Mobile Phone Could Transmit More Than Just a Call.[Review of the article 'Bacterial Contamination of Mobile Phones: When Your Mobile Phone Could Transmit More Than Just a Call ' by Ansah E].WebmedCentral 2011;2(10):WMCRW00990
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Thank you for your comment on our paper. However, l believe some of them are misplaced. l dont really know what the age of the student will add to the sampling process. We could go on to ask about so many questions that may not really add substance to the work. For italicisation, the system of submission does not allow that. We could not have made the mistake of forgetting not to put in italics all scientific names. If you have submitted a paper here and l hope you have, you will realised that submission is not so smooth and that is why you could see some typographical errors. This was meant to be a simple paper highlighting a common problem and as such the writing depicts exactly that. l hope you took the real message the paper was sending though and if you believe it was a problem, then your review could have been better. Thank you anyway
Responded by Dr. Daniel N Tagoe on 26 Jan 2012 04:16:51 PM