If you can't be kind, be scholarly': constructive peer reviewing (LILAC 2016)

If you can’t be kind, be scholarlyConstructive peer reviewing

EMMA COONANJOURNAL OF INFORMATION

LITERACY

Group hug by Joris Louw

es, CC BY 2.0

Aims

• Explore what peer review is and what it’s for• Demystify what it involves• Foster constructive reviewers and critical

friends to scholarship

What is peer review anyway?

Discussion

1. What is peer review?2. What’s it for?3. What does it not do?

Discussion

1. What is peer review?

Discussion

1. What is peer review?Appraisal of reported research by expert in the fieldMay be ‘double blind’ – author’s name is not revealedMay be 2 or more reviewers

Discussion

2. What’s it for?

Discussion

2. What’s it for?Verification of reported results as far as possible

Guide the editor in a decision on whether to publishHelp authors make the best possible presentation of their research to their community of practice

The $64,000 question

“What’s needed to bring this up to publishable standard?”

The point is not to eliminate but to include

Discussion

3. What does it not do?

Discussion

3. What does it not do?ProofreadReplicate resultsGuarantee truth

What does it involve?

What to look for

• Research informed and evidence based• Designed around an arguable research question• Contextualised with reference to previous and current

advances in IL thinking• Methodologically robust with a demonstrable research design• Investigation not description

Guess the headings (there are 6!)

Guess the headings

• Relevance to JIL• Originality and interest to audience• Title and abstract• Methodology• Use of literature and referencing• Clarity of expression and structure

Outcomes for each criterion

• Appropriate• Needs amendment• Needs major rewriting or adjustment

Overall recommendation

• Accept for publication without amendment• Revisions required• Major revisions required followed by peer review• Decline submission

How to look

• Critically and analytically - not descriptively / not at sentence level

• Test for weakness in argument and structure- use the what/why/how framework

• Detached mindset- evaluate integrity of argument, not how far it matches your own view of IL

• Don’t just review what you see- what is the author not saying? What literature hasn’t been cited?

Reviewer’s toolkit

Reviewer’s toolkit

• JIL’s 4 bullet points

Reviewer’s toolkit

• JIL’s 4 bullet pointsQuestion-led, evidence-based investigation

Reviewer’s toolkit

• JIL’s 4 bullet pointsQuestion-led, evidence-based investigation

• The $64,000 question

Reviewer’s toolkit

• JIL’s 4 bullet pointsQuestion-led, evidence-based investigation

• The $64,000 question “What’s needed to bring this up to publishable standard?”

Reviewer’s toolkit

• JIL’s 4 bullet pointsQuestion-led, evidence-based investigation

• The $64,000 question “What’s needed to bring this up to publishable standard?”

• Strategic reading techniques

Reviewer’s toolkit

• JIL’s 4 bullet pointsQuestion-led, evidence-based investigation

• The $64,000 question “What’s needed to bring this up to publishable standard?”

• Strategic reading techniquesIncluding reverse outlining

Reviewer’s toolkit

• JIL’s 4 bullet pointsQuestion-led, evidence-based investigation

• The $64,000 question “What’s needed to bring this up to publishable standard?”

• Strategic reading techniquesIncluding reverse outlining

• What/why/how

What/why/how

• What is the research?What questions does it address? What contribution does it make?

• Why has it been done?Why does it matter? What will it change?

• How has it been done?What’s the method? How does it frame the findings? How has it helped the researcher mitigate bias?

Being constructively critical

“I would like to thank you again for all the constructive and benevolent effort that you and your reviewers put into this review and for the graciousness with which you did it.  “I have been through several submission processes that have been quite impersonal and where the critical feedback has been either on the verge of cruelty or entirely neglectful.  You and your reviewers stand apart …”

Discussion

How can we be helpful and humane?

On being helpful and humane

• Check your privilege - unequal power relationship• You don’t have to agree, just to check if the position is

adequately grounded and defended

On being helpful and humane

• Use what’s well done as a yardstick• “What I think would make this even better is …”

On being helpful and humane

• “Show your workings” (be evidence-based!)• Give practical and workable suggestions for how to

implement your amendments

1. “This article is riddled with assumptions.”2. “The writing is often arrestingly pedestrian.”3. “It is clear that the author has read way too much and

understood way too little.”4. “Something is missing.”5. “Not only does this strike me as the worst kind of

postmodern legerdemain, but if true the statement would transform ethics into a hopelessly muddled enterprise.”

From http://shitmyreviewerssay.tumblr.com/ 

Further reading

Explorations of Style (2011) Reverse outlinesJournal of Information Literacy, JIL author guidelinesLowell, Seri (2002) Helpful hints for effective peer reviewingRaff, Jennifer (2013) How to become good at peer reviewSchneiderhan, Erik (2013) Why you gotta be so mean?

Emma Coonan, Editor-in-Chief

Journal of Information Literacy

e.coonan@uea.ac.uk

Twitter: LibGoddess