In 2020, I was pleased to be asked to peer review three papers. I was not surprised to find that I enjoyed the experience, and it has motivated me to one day serve on an editorial team. While my background is in history, and the publishing standards for other disciplines may be different, I believe the general principles are universal. Peer review can and should be a simple, enjoyable and productive process.
I am still early in my peer-review career, but my simple rules currently are:
1). Listen carefully to the paper and understand its purpose and identity.
2). Envision the paper in its best form that delivers on journal’s and/or special issue’s aims.
3). Tell the author how to manifest this paper’s best form in three concrete steps.
The first paper I reviewed was on Norwegian AIDS gay/lesbian activists who also worked as medical professionals. The second was a comparative analysis of Scottish and English anti-drug education campaigns of the 1980s. The third was a concept paper offering flexible frameworks for how pandemics end. More often than not, I have found that I am encouraging the author to articulate the most assertive, brave and open-minded version of their argument. This is generally also the peer review feedback I get on my own papers.
There are flaws in the peer-review process. John Bohannon’s 2013 ‘Who’s Afraid of Peer Review’ related his experiences submitting spoof papers announcing the discovery of a miracle substance to several pharmaceutical or chemical journals.[1] Richard Smith, former editor of the British Medical Journal, suggests different ways of peer reviewing papers.[2] In history, it is difficult to deny that a particular event has happened or to fake data, such as an archival source, since historical researchers cannot create new institutional document repositories. Usually, the paper addresses a matter of significance, so even if it is not interesting to a general audience outside our discipline, I operate with the understanding that the event is important enough for a great many people to warrant at least one journal article’s worth of attention.
Perhaps I have been lucky with the quality of the first drafts of papers I receive, but I have not found in the social scientific and humanities papers I receive, in history in particular, that peer review became a place to get rid of outlandish research. In my experience, editorial staff and fellow reviewers were consistent in publishing principles. A paper is accepted if the data is original and good; the story is significant; and the argument pushes forward our understanding of historical change in human civilizations.
Minor Tips:
- Interpret the paper’s argument, however it’s currently coming across in tone, in its most measured, open-minded, yet analytically sharp and innovative form.
- Structure your advice as you would any essay: overarching point (‘You need to square with this theme if you want your current argument to stand’) and three sub-points (‘To do this, I think you should address this current development/type of source/topic’).
- Invest a little: include bits of extraneous research to illustrate your point, such as suggesting what other topic could be discussed in a section to better deliver the argument or further references that the author could rest the argument on so as not to backtrack. This reassures the author that you have properly understood their piece, you are taking a stand on guiding the paper’s improvement, and are offering solid advice that you yourself would take.
- Begin and end your review with how much is left before publishing polish. I have generally found most papers are about 85% of the way there. Remind the author and editorial team in the concluding paragraph of why this paper should be published.
[1]John Bohannon, ‘Who’s Afraid of Peer Review?’, Science, 342, 6154 (2013), 60-5. Accessed here: <https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f023/64efa2447498c552e6b2b5ffb05a442ce5ad.pdf>. [2]Richard Smith, ‘Peer review: a flawed process at the heart of science and journals’, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 99 (2006), 178-82.
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