|
Peer Review
Most academic journals are "refereed" or
"peer-reviewed." This is an important aspect
of the publishing process for journals. While
mainstream magazines have staff editors
and fact-checkers who review articles before
they are published, journal articles are usually
reviewed by a small group of the author's peers;
that is, other experts who are familiar with the
subject matter of the article. These experts,
or "referees," review a new article and make
sure that the author has done effective research,
collected data correctly and drawn appropriate
conclusions. Through the peer-review process, experts in
each academic field maintain high standards
for research and publication in their subject area.
It is not unusual for new articles to be returned
to the author because further clarification is needed
on a certain point, or perhaps the data presented
don't support the author's conclusions. Referees
can be expected to be fair because each one must
go through the same process when they are ready
to publish!
Suppose that before you handed a term paper to
your professor, you had to give copies to four
classmates for review. Your classmates would
be expected to check for more than errors of
spelling or punctuation. They would also check
the effectiveness of your arguments. The papers
would be returned to you with constructive com-
ments and you would have a chance to strengthen
the weaker parts of your paper before you turned it
in to the instructor. If everyone in the class has to
go through the same process, the quality of all the
papers will be improved. This is the primary benefit
of the peer-review process.
On to page 3
|
