Resource of the Week #19: Three Resources on Peer Reviewing

Peer reviewing is important in research publication. However, few researchers have been taught how to prepare helpful peer reviews.

Fortunately, some recent articles offer advice on peer reviewing. Let me mention 3 that are openly accessible.

“Twelve Tips for Reviewers” offers lots of good advice. This well-written article is by Henry L. Roediger III, a psychology professor at Washington University in St. Louis, USA.

 “How to be a bad referee?!” helps researchers learn to be good referees (peer reviewers) by reading what bad referees do. The author is Mohammad Sal Moslehian, a mathematics professor at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran. Both Roediger and Moslehian have been journal editors.

“Writing a helpful referee’s report”, by Brian Martin of the University of Wollongong (in Australia), also offers helpful advice. The main point: “It is possible to write a report that is supportive and helpful by following two rules: Say what is good about a piece of work, and say how it can be improved.”

One caution is that some of the points in these articles apply only to some journals. Therefore peer reviewers also must read the instructions from the journal.

Until the next post— Barbara