The Discourse of Peer Review: Reviewing Submissions to Academic Journals

242 Pages·2017·1.88 MB·English

by  Brian Paltridge (auth.)

T H E D I S C O U R S E
O F P E E R R E V I E W
Reviewing Submissions to Academic Journals
BRIAN PALTRIDGE
The Discourse of Peer Review
Brian Paltridge
The Discourse of Peer
Review
Reviewing Submissions to Academic Journals
Brian Paltridge
Sydney School of Education & Social Work
University of Sydney
Sydney, Australia
ISBN 978-1-137-48735-3 ISBN 978-1-137-48736-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-48736-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017932103
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Acknowledgements
This book would not have been possible without the English for Specific
Purposes reviewers agreeing to allow their reports to be part of this study.
I am especially thankful for this. I am also grateful to the reviewers that
completed the survey and agreed to follow-up interviews. Without all
this, there would have been no book.
Thank you also to Betty Samraj for her help in collecting the data for
the book. As I was an editor of English for Specific Purposes at the time
the data were collected, Betty approached people in the first instance
and then worked with me to put together the set of reviews that form
the basis of the study. I am also grateful for the very supportive reviews
I received on the proposal for this book and the very kind and construc-
tive comments they contained. My thanks also to Sally Humphrey for
reading draft sections of the book and for the invaluable feedback she
provided me with.
Permission is gratefully acknowledged to reprint or adapt the fol-
lowing material in the book: English for Specific Purposes for Fig. 1.1
reproduced from Hyon, S. (2008). Convention and inventiveness in an
occluded academic genre: A case study of retention-promotion-tenure
reports. English for Specific Purposes, 27, 175–192. Copyright © Elsevier;
TESOL Quarterly for Tables 7.1 and 7.3 reproduced from Mahboob, A.,
Paltridge. B. Phakiti, A., Wagner, E., Starfield, S., Burns, A., Jones, R. &
v
vi Acknowledgements
De Costa, P. (2016). TESOL Quarterly research guidelines. TESOL
Quarterly, 50, 130–153, Copyright © Wiley; Cambridge University
Press for Fig. 1.2 reproduced © courtesy of Cambridge University Press
from Swales J. M. (2004). Research genres: Explorations and Applications.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Studies in Higher Education
for extracts from B. Paltridge (2015). Referees’ comments on submis-
sions to peer-reviewed journals: When is a suggestion not a suggestion?
Studies in Higher Education, 40, 1, 106–122, copyright © Society for
Research into Higher Education, reprinted by permission of Taylor &
Francis Ltd, www.tandfonline.com on behalf of Society for Research
into Higher Education; International Journal for Researcher Development
for extracts from B. Paltridge (2013). Learning to review submissions
to peer reviewed journals: How do they do it? International Journal for
Researcher Development, 4, 1. 6–18, Copyright © Emerald. My thanks
also to Nicole Mockler for allowing me to reproduce the handout from
her workshop on conducting good peer reviews held at the University of
Sydney on 10 May 2016.
Contents
1 Peer Review in Academic Settings 1
Peer Review in Academic Settings 1
Reviews of Research Grant Applications 2
Reviews of Promotion and Tenure Track Applications 8
Peer Review of Academic Books 12
Book Reviews 12
Book Blurbs 13
Peer Review of Book Proposals 15
Reviews for Book Proposals 16
Reviews for a Second Edition of a Book 18
Proposals for Edited Collections 20
Peer Review of Journal Articles 21
The History of Editorial Peer Review 22
The Process of Editorial Peer Review 23
Overview of the Study 25
The Reviewers’ Reports 27
Overview of the Book 28
2 The Genre of Reviewers’ Reports 31
The Context of Reviewers’ Reports 35
The Discourse Structure of Reviewers’ Reports 38
vii
viii Contents
The Accept Reviews 41
The Minor Revisions Reviews 42
The Major Revisions Reviews 45
The Reject Reviews 47
The Content of Reviewers’ Reports 49
The Accept Reviews 52
The Minor Revisions Reviews 54
The Major Revisions Reviews 56
The Reject Reviews 61
Positive and Negative Comments in All the Reviews 63
Conclusions 64
3 Pragmatics and Reviewers’ Reports 67
Pragmatics and Discourse 68
Speech Acts and the Interpretation of Texts 69
The Language of Reviewers’ Reports 72
Speech Acts and the Reviewers’ Reports 74
Experience of the Reviewers 81
Language Background of the Reviewers 83
Discussion 84
Conclusions 87
4 Politeness and Reviewers’ Reports 91
Politeness and Face 92
Politeness and Gender 95
Face-Threatening Acts 96
Politeness and Reviewers’ Reports 98
The Accept Reviews 100
The Minor Revisions Reviews 102
The Major Revisions Reviews 105
The Reject Reviews 107
Conclusions 111
Conten ts ix
5 Evaluation and Reviewers’ Reports 115
Corpus Studies of Academic Discourse 120
Stance and Academic Writing 122
Evaluative Language in the Reports 124
The Accept Reviews 124
The Minor Revisions Reviews 126
The Major Revisions Reviews 127
The Reject Reviews 129
Reviewer Roles in the Reports 132
The Accept Reviews 135
The Minor Revisions Reviews 136
The Major Revisions Reviews 138
The Reject Reviews 140
Conclusions 142
6 Learning to Do Peer Review 145
Training and Mentoring in Peer Review 145
Learning to Do Peer Review 148
How They Learnt to Write Reviews 148
Language Background of the Reviewers 150
The Most Challenging Aspects of Writing Reviews 151
The Most Straightforward Aspects of Writing Reviews 152
Discussion 153
Implications for Reviewer Training 154
Conclusion 155
7 Implications for Reviewer Training 157
Workshop: Understanding the Peer Review Process 159
Tasks: Understanding the Peer Review Process 162
The Peer Review Process 162
The Initial Culling of Submissions 163
Review Criteria and Types of Journal 166
Reviewing Submissions to Academic Journals 168
x Contents
From Reviewers’ Reports to the Final Version of an 
Academic Article 172
Implications for Successful Academic Publishing 174
Tasks: Understanding Reviewers’ Reports 174
The Genre of Reviewers’ Reports 174
The Content of Reviewers’ Reports 175
Pragmatics and Reviewers’ Reports 175
Politeness and Reviewers’ Reports 177
Evaluation in Reviewers’ Reports 177
Conclusion 177
8 Conclusions 183
Appendix: Questionnaire for the Reviewers 195
References 197
Index 223