Table 1 Comparison between authors and reviewers of congress abstracts and papers submitted to scientific journals

	*Congress abstracts (e.g.* ERS International Congress)**		Manuscripts submitted to peer-reviewed journals
	Author	Reviewer	Author	Reviewer
Number of submissions to consider	1-2, max 3	Around 50	1	1
Personal involvement, emotional dedication	High	None	High, situated in a very dedicated group	Little, at best
Knowledge of the research performed	Often very detailed	None	Expert	None
Expertise in the research field	Ranging from low to high	Usually high	Usually rather high	High
Perceived acceptance rate	Accurate	Too high	Too low	Accurate
Abstract/manuscript content	Good enough to warrant a congress presentation	Ranging from excellent to extremely poor	Good with important clinical/scientific message	Ranging from excellent to extremely poor
Abstract/manuscript structure	Accurate, self-satisfactory	From excellent to poor	As good as can be	From excellent to poor
Assigned time	One to a few months	Few days	Ranging from months to years	Usually two to four weeks
General opinion about the contributed work	First congress: “Acceptance rate should be higher!” Later on: “Too many low quality abstracts are accepted!”	Anywhere from “Excellent” to “Very poor” (sometimes in the same session)	“Improving with every contribution I make”	From “Why is this even being reviewed?” to “I want to write an editorial on this!”