Understanding the ‘Five Stages of Peer Review’: How can I easily and effectively write a peer review report for a journal?

Getting emails from journals asking you to perform peer review can be confusing, flattering, or downright scary. How to manage this?

Journal editors routinely send out email ‘requests for peer review’. I got one this morning: ‘Dear x, We would be grateful if you would kindly agree to act as a reviewer for this paper.  The abstract…