Reviewing Manuscripts for Professional Journals: Building Your Skills to Support Your Scholarship

Academic scholarship is a reciprocal process in any discipline, with sound scholarship requiring competent, thoughtful manuscript reviewers. This panel will hone your skills as a reviewer and writer. A representative of a leading publisher, together with three journal editors, will present resources for reviewing and providing constructive criticism.

Scholarly publication is a critical part of the work of all social work educators. Regardless of the substantive area in which we conduct our research, contributing to the emerging evidence base is a tremendously important role we play—and an expectation for us to be successful in higher education. The use of peers to assess the work of fellow colleagues dates back at least 200 years (Jefferson, et al, 2002). Its use is assumed to raise the quality of the academic contribution and to provide a mechanism for rational, fair, and objective decision making. The peer review process is a hallmark of scholarly publication which serves both a gate keeper to promote access to those manuscripts meeting the high standards of rigor and represent a contribution to the literature. In addition, it is valuable part of professional development of scholars in the academy.

In order to develop the skills necessary to submit high quality manuscripts for publication scholars depend on the constructive feedback of their colleagues. Published articles represent the evolution of a manuscript through the application of the critical appraisal and recommendations made by peer reviewers through the reflection and revision processes. If academics desire to have their articles published, they must in turn contribute to the work of their peers through the review process. However, university faculty are not typically trained in how to perform high quality and productive peer review.

This panel features three social work journal editors-in-chief and a representative from a large publishing firm will provide participants with the foundation for conducting high quality manuscript reviews. Topics to be covered will include an overview of the peer review process, an explanation of the different types of reviews, an introduction to the Committee on Publication Ethics Guidelines and the APA 7th Edition Journal Article Reporting Standards, the general components of high quality review, how to provide constructive feedback, current trends in open science and peer review in social work, and ethical considerations for peer reviewers. In addition, resources will be provided to assist reviewers in conducting reviews. By including editors from a variety of journals, different perspectives and processes will be discussed.

Peer review will be presented as both an ethical obligation and an honor for the scholars who participate in it. Learning to conduct high quality peer review of scholarly manuscripts has benefits well beyond those enjoyed by the authors whose manuscripts one reviews. This is an opportunity to hone your writing skills as well, become exposed to the varying perspectives offered by multiple reviewers, and learn the general expectations for publication in scholarly journals in our field. This session will provide the basics of participating in the peer review process.

Jefferson, T., Alderson, P., Wager, E., & Davidoff, F. (2002). Effects of editorial peer review: a systematic review. Jama, 287(21), 2784-2786.