5 - Peer Review

Summary

Introduction

Peer review is a process by which the quality, novelty and originality of scholarly works are assessed and appraised. It is an established mechanism in making decisions about the acceptance and rejection of manuscripts. As such, it also serves as a form of quality control in scholarly publishing: a peer reviewed article is a manuscript that has been vetted by subject experts in the research area. In the guidelines for good practice, Hames (2007, 2–3) suggests that peer review performs the following functions:

• 1 prevent the publication of bad work and filter out studies that have been poorly conceived, designed or executed

• 2 check that the research reported has been carried out well and there are no flaws in the design or methodology

• 3 ensure that the work is reported correctly and unambiguously, with acknowledgment to the existing body of work

• 4 ensure that the results presented have been interpreted correctly and all possible interpretations considered

• 5 ensure that the results are not too preliminary or too speculative, but at the same time not block innovative new research and theories

• 6 select work that will be of the greatest interest to the readership

• 7 provide editors with evidence to make judgements as to whether articles meet the selection criteria for their particular publications

• 8 generally improve the quality and readability of a publication.

Why should an author consider the peer-review process when choosing where to publish? It is because the peer-review process can vary for different publication types and for different publishers. It is important for an author to consider the peer-review process before submission because there are advantages and disadvantages associated with the process, depending on the author's career stage, the speed of publication and the thoroughness and openness of peer reviews. For conference proceedings and journal articles, double- and single-blind peer reviews are the most common, while open peer review and post-publication peer review have been proposed and adopted in recent years. For monographs and edited books, the peer-review process can vary from the book proposal stage to the final manuscript. Understanding the peer-review process is essential when preparing a manuscript or book proposal.

The peer-review process

The peer-review process begins with the selection of peer reviewers. Ideally, the reviewers are peers who are familiar with the theories, methodologies and methods in a subject area.