What Previum returns on a published physiotherapy paper: every critique pinned to its sentence, p values recomputed, figures that do not add up and references checked against eight databases.
Sample report · physiotherapy · real, already published paper
A paper published in a peer-reviewed journal, run through the Basic report exactly as it is, nothing edited: the manuscript with every critique pinned to the sentence that triggers it, and the code checks underneath.
The paper has already been peer reviewed and published. It is reproduced here under its Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (the full attribution, authors included, is at the linked DOI; they are deliberately not named here) to show what Previum returns on a real text from your field. The objections are the ones one more reviewer could have raised; that a published paper receives them says how demanding the tool is, not how weak the paper is.
Effects of manual therapy in addition to stretching and strengthening exercises to improve scapular range of motion, functional capacity and pain in patients with shoulder impingement syndrome: a randomized controlled trial. BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, 2024. DOI: 10.1186/s12891-024-07294-4. License: CC BY 4.0.
The manuscript reports a single-centre RCT comparing manual therapy plus exercise versus exercise alone in chronic shoulder impingement syndrome. Two critical reporting errors (impossible demographic totals and under-powered sample without sensitivity analysis) must be corrected before the work can be considered for publication. Additional improvements in effect-size reporting and discussion of the unequal session durations are also required. After these revisions the manuscript may be suitable for a specialist physiotherapy or rehabilitation journal.
Quoted sentence: «Based on this criterion, 32 participants were required in each group. Considering 10% attrition, data were collected from 36 participants.»
Why it matters: With half the planned sample, the study is under-powered for the between-group comparisons that form the primary claims; non-significant findings in the control group cannot be interpreted confidently.
What would fix it: Add a post-hoc power calculation (G*Power, two independent means, α=0.05, observed effect sizes) and a sensitivity analysis stating the minimum detectable effect size with n=16 per group; discuss implications in the limitations section.
Quoted sentence: «A total of 27 males and 35 females were recruited in the study and were randomly assigned to both groups.»
Why it matters: These contradictions invalidate the demographic description and raise serious doubts about data integrity and reporting accuracy, which an editor or reviewer would flag as a fatal flaw in the results section.
What would fix it: Recalculate and correct all gender counts, percentages and totals so they sum exactly to n=32; replace the erroneous sentence with the accurate figures and verify every cell in Table 2 against the raw data.
In total the reviewer found 7 major and 9 minor issues; the Basic report shows the two that decide.
With the same engine the tool uses, on 11 September 2026: the full text of the paper, tables and references included, went into the Basic report with no added instructions. The checks below are arithmetic on the text and queries to eight bibliographic databases, no model involved. Not a line of the output has been edited.
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