Advice for Peer Reviewers and Editors
As a follow-up to the WCC’s Publishing a Journal Article event, the Publishing Series team hosted an event on advice for peer reviewers and editors. The event was formatted as a roundtable discussion , in which each panelist briefly presented an overview of their journal’s publication process. Facilitator Suzanne Lye then interviewed them with crowd-sourced questions. In the final portion of the session, the panelists invited questions from session attendees. You can view the presentations in the video.
Watch below for presentations by the panelists and an interview facilitated by Suzanne Lye.
Tips for Reviewers
Please do not use track changes on documents. It risks compromising identity, and the process is double-anonymous (neither author nor reviewer know the identity of the other).
You can decline to review a submission, and that is perfectly fine. Ideally you would recommend potential reviewers for the editor to contact.
Please communicate your timeline to the editor. If you are unable to meet the original deadline, please email the editor and let them know. If you are unable to complete the review, communicate this clearly so that the editor can secure another reviewer.
The best reports substantiate the assessment, rather than make blanket statements. Reviewers can, inter alia, indicate items of bibliography to be consulted or make suggestions to improve the structure of the argument.
If you recommend revision and resubmission, be willing and able to read the revised version when it comes in.
Write the kind of review that you would like to receive: professional, documented, and respectful.
The Life of the Editor
Editors are not gatekeepers; they are facilitators.
Editors take great satisfaction in reading scholarship outside of their area of expertise and always learning something new from both the submissions and the reports. Editors get to stay ahead on developments across classics broadly construed. And editors become better writers and proofreaders themselves.
Editors get to see the generosity of the Classics community. Reviewers are generous scholars who give their time freely, improve the quality of the work, and make the finished product so much better. The generosity is “mind blowing”, as the lion’s share of the reviews, whether positive or negative, are illuminating.
Editors work with editorial boards for advice in unusual situations or in cases of conflicting reports; discuss trends in submissions or acceptance rates. They may solicit advice at an ad-hoc basis and/or have regular meetings, depending on the journal. In some journals, the editorial board will even read resubmissions.
Finding the right reviewer is the most challenging part of the editor’s job. Editors research the topic, ask colleagues, consult the bibliography of the submission to find potential reviewers, and ask reviewers for recommendations of potential reviewers.
Different journals offer their editors different levels of support: stipends, course releases, editorial staff are not the norm.
Editors develop management systems and mechanisms that work best for them to track submissions through the process from initial contact to final decision and in those cases of positive reviews, to publication.
Editors maintain the anonymity of the reviewers and authors.
FAQ
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There isn’t much pressure from the editorial board or press to produce justifying statistics or consider metrics when it comes to reads, downloads, and citations. There are some articles that will inevitably generate more downloads than others, especially if they cover topics that would appeal to undergraduates writing papers or the general public, but that doesn’t factor into the choices that editors make. The priority is to facilitate the publication of high quality articles!
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Volunteering to serve as a reviewer is often not helpful to an editor, since the submissions are so varied and they don’t keep a list of potential reviewers. The best way to become a reviewer is to publish and build a professional network of colleagues who might recommend you!
With that said, editors are also mindful of how much time and effort it takes to review an article. If you have been asked but feel like you would be overcommitting, especially as an early career scholar, there will be no hard feelings if you have to say no!
When it comes to networking benefits, the double anonymity will prevent reviewers and authors from knowing each other’s identities; however, once the article is published, there is potential down the road to connect should you choose to identify yourself as the reviewer.
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The biggest takeaways are becoming a better proof reader and scholar! Here are some specific insights below:
Having to articulate your criticisms of an argument or approach isn’t the kind of thinking we’re used to doing when we’re writing articles, so having that skill can help us be better scholars.
Becoming a better writer and recognizing the components of a successful article. For example, don’t wait to state what your article is about - do it on page one!
Becoming more appreciative of the amount of invisible work of all parties involved in the publication process.
Becoming more appreciative of the review process and that even the smallest critiques can make a big difference in improving an article.
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As of this event date, not yet, but the panelists believe that the time will come soon when journals need to start developing policies and guidelines. As far as they know, effective tools aren’t yet available that will help editors decide if something has been written by AI or not. As we continue this discourse, one thing to consider is a potential uptick in labour that will fall upon editors to navigate AI’s presence in future submissions.
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To look back with much gratitude for the joyful moments of bringing an article from submission to publication.
To look forward to someone fresh to step in and make their mark on the journal. And with that, to have made your own mark so that you can hand the journal over in a condition that makes the next editor’s job easier.