Micro December 2018

11/19/2018

OFFICIAL METHODS of ANALYSIS COLLABORATIVE STUDY PROTOCOL REVIEW FORM

In manuscript - It seems that the results are not calculated/presented with care, and the manuscript is not prepared/reviewed professionally. The difference of Means presented Table 2018.1A and Table 2018.1B are not calculated correctly according to the data presented. I would suspect the calculation of 95% CI as well. The results may not affect the conclusion. But they should be presented correctly. Evaluation of other calculations is impossible due to the unavailability of raw data. Recalculation is recommended by another statistician to make sure the results from both match with each other. Figures 1-5 should be reorganised. The yISO should match with yPet (Petrifilm) or yAlt (Alternative). Both yBAM and rREC means the blue points by legend in Figure 1, and the same issue in Figures 2-5. Please use terms without confusion. Regarding the report - Although HorRat is asked in the review form, it does not apply to log transformed data, neither RSD to my understanding. After log transformation the standard deviation is basically homogenous across the levels within quantification range and is independent to mean or contamination level. Therefore calculation of RSD is misleading for log transformed data. Recommend to remove the RSD calculation.

EDITORIAL EVALUATION CRITERIA Comments: * In Manuscript,

The cited references are not in AOAC format. Page 10, Line 46: Should “<0.5” be “>0.5”? Page 11, Line 32: Insert “(1)” for the first reference cited.

RECOMMENDATION: * The data correspond to the approved study protocol or guidelines and the statistical analysis is acceptable in the manuscript. Clarification(s) needed on data tables, data manipulation and/or statistical analysis would ensure that the manuscript corresponds to the approved study protocol and/or guidelines with the indicated revisions. Manuscript needs the indicated revisions to be statistically acceptable and correspond with the study protocol and/or guidelines. The data collected, data manipulation, data tables and statistical analyses in the manuscript do not correspond to the approved study protocol or guidelines making the manuscript statistically unacceptable.

Reviewer Name (First and Last Name) * Anli Gao

E-mail * agao@uoguelph.ca

SUBMIT

https://form.jotform.com/AOACINT/RIStatsReview

3/3