Ever wondered how the peer-review process works?
The latest issue (March 2010) of the journal American Anthropologist offers an editorial on the process at the American Anthropologist, along with three suggestions to successful reviewing. As someone who often talks to students about the differences between peer-reviewed versus popular articles, I found this behind-the-scenes look quite interesting.
I won’t give away all the tips here since you can go over and read the article online via our subscription through Anthrosource, but one suggestion that caught my eye was “Just Write the Damn Review” because:
tardy reviewers are the number one source for delayed responses to authors and, thus, the primary contributor to the sometimes-slow pace of journal publishing about which many scholars complain.
For another take on the peer-review process (and one that inspired the editorial at the American Anthropologist), see the article The Peer-Review System Is Broken in theĀ Chronicle of Higher Education (another journal to which UBC Library subscribes online).
Citations
Boellstorff, Tom.
2010 Three Tips for Making Peer Review Work for You. American Anthropologist 112(1): 1-4.
Myers, Daniel J.
2009 The Peer-Review System Is Broken. Review. Chronicle
of Higher Education, August 31.