Three Comments on Anthropology and Science

FROM THE EDITOR Three Tips for Making Peer Review Work for You Tom Boellstorff Editor-in-Chief P eer review is a fundamental principle of scholarly pub- lishing, yet scholars rarely talk about it. There are many reasons for this: peer review may seem like decidedly unglamorous work, unworthy of discussion. Peer review occupies a marginal, even furtive, place on our curricula vitae, and journals sometimes remain silent on the workings of peer review in the guise of protecting editorial autonomy. Given this relative reticence, it is understandable that an article by the sociologist Daniel J. Myers, entitled “The Peer-Review System Is Broken” and published on August 31, 2009, in the Chronicle of Higher Education, would have garnered attention. Indeed, Sharon Stein (assistant to the director of publishing at the AAA) kindly forwarded the article to the editors of AAA journals, where it stimulated a range of comments. I find much in the article commendable, but from its title onward, the article misrepresents some of the challenges we face in peer review. Rather than review the article here, its many valid insights have inspired me to provide a “behind the scenes” look at how peer review works at American Anthropologist, along with three suggestions to make peer review more pleasurable and effective. HOW PEER REVIEW WORKS AT AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST To explain how peer review works at American Anthropol- ogist, it will prove helpful to review the editorial process. When manuscripts are submitted to American Anthropologist, I conduct an initial reading to determine if the manuscript is appropriate for peer review. This is normal editorial prac- tice in all scholarly journals because (1) it is evident that for some subset of submitted manuscripts, it is difficult to see how they would be appropriate for publication even with major revision; (2) some subset of submitted manuscripts simply fall outside the scope of American Anthropologist; and (3) some subset of submitted manuscripts are so far beyond the allowed word limit, or suffer from so many grammatical errors, that authors must do an initial revision before I will even consider the manuscript for review. Manuscripts that pass this initial hurdle are sent out for review. Contrary to claims that “editors already know what they will decide and just pick reviewers who will confirm their opinion,” at this stage I have never made a definitive decision about a manuscript. I (and most editors to my knowledge) have not at this point in the process engaged in the kind of extended, close reading necessary to make a final decision. To obtain reviewers, I send the abstract of the manuscript in question to the AA Editorial Board and ask for suggestions (this is one reason why it is crucial that authors ensure that their abstracts accurately reflect the manuscript as a whole and are easy to understand). Particularly for a journal like American Anthropologist that draws submissions from a wide range of subdisciplinary, geographical, methodological, and theoretical perspectives, having an editorial board that can suggest reviewers is crucial. Between these suggestions from my editorial board and additional suggestions offered by potential peer reviewers themselves, we obtain a minimum of three reviewers for each manuscript (but often as many as four or five). This is an area for which there is some variation: some journals are happy with only two reviews, while others seek six or seven reviews for a manuscript. However, “three to five” does seem to be a norm for many journals. Although on occasion the first three people asked all agree to review, more often six to ten potential reviewers must be contacted to find a minimum of three that will do a review. At American Anthropologist, we provide a three-week pe- riod for reviewers to provide their comments to us. Of course some reviewers take longer, but even in the tardi- est cases, we usually obtain all reviews within four to six weeks. This is a considerably faster turnaround than some journals, but I have found reviewers to be, for the most part, incredibly responsive in this regard: a significant number of reviewers return comments within seven days. After all, a review takes the same time to complete if it is done in the near term or languishes for two months, so why not just do it? I have found reviewers to be very generous; in only two or three cases over more than two years of editorship have I had to redact part of a review because of overly negative or inappropriate comments. Reviewers often provide pages upon pages of helpful responses: even shorter reviews of two or three paragraphs are in most cases very insightful. Reviews play a significant role in the decisions I (and any editor, to my knowledge) eventually make with regard to a manuscript. Although the final decision rests with me alone, c AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Vol. 112, Issue 1, pp. 1–4, ISSN 0002-7294 online ISSN 1548-1433. 2010 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1433.2009.01191.x