Cover not available
Part of
Professional Development in Applied Linguistics: A guide to success for graduate students and early career faculty
Edited by Luke Plonsky
[Not in series 229] 2020
► pp. 113–138

Chapter 9
Reviewing manuscripts for academic journals

| Virginia International University
Reviewing manuscripts for academic journals not only contributes to the advancement of knowledge and the development of fellow researchers, but also holds numerous advantages for the reviewers themselves. After a brief explanation of what reviewing is and how it works, this chapter describes some of the benefits of reviewing; provides guidance regarding how to write fair, reasonable, meaningful, systematic, specific, improvement-oriented reviews; raises factors to consider in decision-making; offers advice for balancing reviewing against other professional priorities and obligations; and seeks to answer a variety of practical “how-to” and “what-if” questions that might arise in the process. Approached with a constructive and strategic mindset, reviewing offers valuable opportunities for graduate students and new faculty to grow intellectually and professionally, influence and promote progress in the field, enhance their reputations, and establish themselves as engaged members of a research community in ways that will stand them in good stead throughout their careers.
Article outline
  • What to expect
  • Benefits
    • Access
    • Intellectual and professional development
    • Intrinsic rewards
    • Influence
  • Considerations
    • Other priorities and obligations
    • Personal impact
    • Contribution: Effort ratio
  • Approaches
    • Fair and constructive criticism
    • Specificity
    • Clarity and organization
  • Hows and what ifs
    • How long should a review be, and how long should it take?
    • How soon should you prioritize writing a review?
    • What tends to work as a general approach?
    • How do you decide on an overall recommendation?
    • What if you think you know the identity of the author?
  • Some final thoughts
  • Acknowledgment
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 30 July 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/z.229.09sac
References (43)
References
Amsen, E. (2014, January 22). The Twitter view on peer review. F1000Research. Retrieved from <[URL]> (28 January, 2020) Google Scholar
Brown, A. M. L. (2015, November 10). How not to be Reviewer #2. Retrieved from <[URL]> (28 January, 2020)
Cohen, P. (2010, August 23). Scholars test web alternative to peer review. The New York Times. Retrieved from <[URL]> (28 January, 2020).Google Scholar
Digital Pedagogy Lab. (n.d.). Hybrid pedagogy: A digital journal of learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from <[URL]> (21 February, 2017).
Elsevier. (2017). Scopus®. Retrieved from <[URL]> (4 January, 2017).
Ferguson, C., Marcus, A., & Oransky, I. (2014, November 26). Publishing: The peer-review scam. Nature, 515(7528). Retrieved from <[URL]> (28 January, 2020). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hames, I. (2013, March). COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers. Committee on Publication Ethics. Retrieved from <[URL]> (28 January, 2020).
(2015, June 22). Re: The problem(s) with credit for peer review [Blog comment]. The Scholarly Kitchen. Society for Scholarly Publishing. Retrieved from <[URL]> (28 January, 2020).Google Scholar
Hartshorn, K. J. (2016). The status of peer review in applied linguistics research. Journal of Linguistics and Language Teaching, 7(2), 155–181.Google Scholar
Larivière, V., Haustein, S., & Mongeon, P. (2015). The oligopoly of academic publishers in the digital era. PLoS ONE, 10(6). Retrieved from <[URL]> (28 January, 2020). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lucey, B. (2013, September 27). Peer review: How to get it right – 10 tips. The Guardian. Retrieved from <[URL]> (28 January, 2020).Google Scholar
McDermott, J. [@redpenblackpen]. (2014, February 10). What peer review feels like. The Mad Scientist Confectioner’s Club. [Blog]. Retrieved from <[URL]> (28 January, 2020).Google Scholar
. (2014, September 5). The dawn of peer review. The Mad Scientist Confectioner’s Club. [Blog]. Retrieved from <[URL]> (28 January, 2020). Google Scholar
. (2015, April 22). Your manuscript on peer review. The Mad Scientist Confectioner’s Club. [Blog]. Retrieved from <[URL]> (28 January, 2020). Google Scholar
. (2016, January 21). Making a super villain. The Mad Scientist Confectioner’s Club. [Blog]. Retrieved from <[URL]> (28 January, 2020).Google Scholar
Mehmani, B. (2016, September 22). Is open peer review the way forward? Elsevier. Retrieved from <[URL]> (28 January, 2020). Google Scholar
Milstein, S. (2002, August 12). New Economy; Web-based peer-review programs are reducing turnaround time, postage bills and workload at many scholarly journals. The New York Times. Retrieved from <[URL]> (28 January, 2020). Google Scholar
Movie-Moments. (2016, May 2). My life is good, really good – Nacho Libre, Jack Black. [Fair use movie clip]. From J. Black, D. Klawans, J. Pistor, & M. White (Producers) & J. Hess (Director), Nacho Libre [Motion Picture, 2006]. Hollywood, CA: Paramount Pictures. Retrieved from <[URL]> (14 February, 2017).Google Scholar
Moylan, E. (2015, March 26). Inappropriate manipulation of peer review. BioMed Central Blog. Retrieved from <[URL]> (28 January, 2020). Google Scholar
Publons. (n.d.). Track more of your research impact. Retrieved from <[URL]> (28 January, 2020).
Research Wahlberg [@ResearchMark]. (n.d.). Media tweets by Research Wahlberg. Retrieved from <[URL]> (28 January, 2020). Also available at <[URL]> (28 January, 2020).
Retraction Watch. (2017). Archive for the ‘self peer review’ category. Retrieved from <[URL]> (4 January, 2017).
Reviewer 2 Must Be Stopped! (n.d.) In Facebook [Public Group]. Retrieved from <[URL]> (4 January, 2017).
Romano, A. (2015, August 21). Academic journals are facing a battle to weed out fake peer reviews. The Daily Dot. Retrieved from <[URL]> (28 January, 2020). Google Scholar
Ross-Hellauer, T. (2016, October 30). Defining open peer review: Part one – competing definitions. [Blog]. OpenAIRE blog. Retrieved from <[URL]> (28 January, 2020). Google Scholar
Schmidt, R., & Frota, S. N. (1986). Developing basic conversational ability in a second language: A case study of an adult learner of Portuguese. In R. R. Day (Ed.), Talking to learn: Conversation in second language acquisition (pp. 237–326). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.Google Scholar
SciRev. (2013–2017). All reviews received by SciRev. Retrieved from <[URL]> (2 February, 2017).
Shaw, C. (2013, October 4). Hundreds of open access journals accept fake science paper. The Guardian. Retrieved from <[URL] (28 January, 2020).Google Scholar
Shema, H. (2014, June 28). An introduction to open peer review. [Blog]. Scientific American. Retrieved from <[URL]> (28 January, 2020). Google Scholar
Swain, M. (1995). Three functions of output in second language learning. In G. Cook & B. Seidlhofer (Eds.), Principle and practice in applied linguistics: Studies in honor of H. G. Widdowson (pp. 125–144). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
(1998). Focus on form through conscious reflection. In C. Doughty & J. Williams (Eds.), Focus on form in classroom second language acquisition (pp. 64–81). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tennant, J. (2017, February 1). Who isn’t profiting off the backs of researchers? Discover Magazine. Retrieved from <[URL]> (28 January, 2020).Google Scholar
TESOL. (2015). How to get published in TESOL and applied linguistics serials. Retrieved from <[URL]> (28 January, 2020).
Vines, T. (2015, June 17). The problem(s) with credit for peer review [Blog comment]. Retrieved from <[URL]> (28 January, 2020).
Wiley Author Services. (2000–2016). Recognition for reviewers. Retrieved from <[URL]> (14 February, 2017).
@yourpapersucks. (n.d.). Shit my reviewers say: Collecting the finest real specimens of reviewer comments since 1456. Tumblr. Retrieved January 4, 2017, from <[URL]> (14 February, 2017).Google Scholar
Additional resources
Beall, J. (2017). List of standalone journals: Potential, possible, or probable scholarly open-access journals. Scholarly Open Access: Critical analysis of scholarly open-access publishing. Retrieved from <[URL]> (4 January, 2017).Google Scholar
Committee on Publication Ethics. (2017). Resources. Retrieved from <[URL]> (4 January, 2017).
Guardian News and Media. (2017). Publishing. The Guardian. Retrieved from <[URL]> (4 January, 2017).Google Scholar
Springer Nature. (2017). Specials: The future of publishing. Nature. Retrieved January 4, 2017, from <[URL]> (4 January, 2017).Google Scholar
Wager, E., Simera, I., Kowalczuk, M., & Boughton, S. (Eds.). (2017). Research integrity and peer review. BioMed Central. Retrieved January 4, 2017, from <[URL]> (4 January, 2017).Google Scholar
Ware, M. (2016). Peer review survey 2015. Publishing Research Consortium. Retrieved from <[URL]> (28 January, 2020).Google Scholar
Wiley Author Services. (2000–2016). Journal reviewers. Retrieved from <[URL]> (14 February, 2017).