Experiment with different and new models of peer review, particularly those that increase transparency

Yet, when it comes to academic difference, an ethics of hospitality, interest and pleasure in the other all too often seep away, replaced by a drive for ‘robust’ combat between competing academic paradigms and traditions.

Academic writing doesn’t necessarily aspire to represent what is, as if the material world can be imitated point for point in thought, but to create.

But what often gets omitted in thinking about academic conversation is how to converse in a way that enables – even better, stimulates and encourages – unfamiliar others to participate.

Getting older, I feel more strongly that writing should make contact – a more active relationship than simply being accessible. Teaching first year PhD students, I ask them to think about academic work as entering a conversation.

But what often gets omitted in thinking about academic conversation is how to converse in a way that enables – even better, stimulates and encourages – unfamiliar others to participate.

Teaching first year PhD students, I ask them to think about academic work as entering a conversation.

Does peer review work? Is peer review broken? The vast majority of authors believe it improves their final work, and since it’s evolving from this solid base, it’s clearly not broken. But before we can have a useful discussion about its purpose and effectiveness, we need to agree on which approach to peer review we’re talking about, then whether our expectations of it are reasonable and accurate.

Here are some variables around peer-review we have to understand before we know what kind of peer review we’re actually talking about: Is it blinded? If it is blinded, is it single-blinded or double-blinded? Is there statistical or methodological review in addition to external peer-review? Are the peer reviewers truly experts in the field or a more general assemblage of individuals? What are the promises and goals of the peer review process? What type of disclosure of financial or other potential competing interests is made? Are reviewers aware of these? Is there a senior editor of some sort involved along with outside peer reviewers? Is the peer-review “inherited” from another body, such as a committee or a preceding journal process (e.g., in “cascading” title situations or when expert panels have been involved)? Are there two tiers of peer review within the same journal’s practices? Is the peer-review done at the article level or at the corpus level (as happens with some supplements)? Is plagiarism-detection software used as part of the process? Are figures checked for manipulation? Is the peer reviewer graded by a senior editor as part of an internal evaluation and improvement process?