Becoming a Journal Peer Reviewer: Tips and ideas for early career professionals

By Paul Terry, Editor in Chief of American Journal of Health Promotion

Peer review is one of the most time honored methods for assuring quality in scientific publications. My obvious bias as a journal editor notwithstanding, I consider offering feedback to fellow scientists to be among the most vital, rewarding and enjoyable contributions a researcher can make to the growth and integrity of their profession. After all, peer reviewers are the front line in deciding what studies will be informing quality improvement in an academic discipline.

As Editor in Chief of SAGE’s American Journal of Health Promotion I consider recruiting and retaining a robust panel of peer reviewers to be a central feature of our Journal’s success in helping to shape and lead the health promotion profession. Gladly, we field regular requests to be peer reviewers by among the most accomplished professionals in this discipline so selecting among volunteers interested in being peer reviewers is usually straight forward. When I field a request from someone interested in serving as a peer reviewer I send them a checklist that asks these basic questions: What topic areas do you consider you have the greatest expertise? In our field it could be experience designing interventions related to nutrition, substance abuse, fitness or mental health. Do you bring specialized expertise? This could mean experience in a particular sector such as health care, in a particular population such as youth or underserved communities, in a particular strategy such as behavioral economics. And do you have experience in a particular research methodology such as psychometric analysis or qualitative research?

As much as I’m looking for experts who round out the multi-disciplinary team needed to review manuscripts in an eclectic profession like health promotion, the clincher for me in deciding about an expert’s readiness as a reviewer is usually the number of publications they have authored or co-authored. A baseline number of publications that makes me comfortable considering a person as a peer reviewer is ten publications where at least half are in relatively high impact journals and about a third are first authored. But what of an early career professional who is motivated to serve as a reviewer but who hasn’t yet accumulated this baseline track record as a researcher? What would give me confidence that a researcher who has led relatively few studies is qualified to offer credible guidance to the many veteran researchers entrusting their manuscripts to our journal?

There is a bromide that says “experience is not the best teacher but it’s the most thorough.” If you are early in your career and deciding between time spent on launching studies and submitting papers versus time spent as a reviewer, that’s no contest. Focus first on building your research portfolio. But if you have both the time and the motivation to initiate your own research as well as serve as a peer reviewer, here are a few examples that could persuade me you’re ready to shine at doing both even if you haven’t yet published many articles:

·        You anchor a team: You are working daily among experienced researchers and have played a substantial role in completing studies which haven’t yet yielded publications.

·        A seminal publication: You authored and/or provided significant research and writing to textbooks, nationally renowned reports or influential conference proceedings.

·        Your academic leadership: You already serve as peer reviewer for other high impact journals and you can show a portfolio of well executed manuscript reviews.

·        A unique sub-specialty: You are uniquely qualified to review studies in a highly specialized population or type of intervention.

·        Your editorial acumen: You are able to share a significant portfolio of your editing and critiques of scientific manuscripts specific to those studies you want to peer review.

Peer reviewers are the gatekeepers of the base of knowledge that influences a field’s ultimate direction and success at fulfilling its purpose. As such, being a peer reviewer feels as humbling as it is empowering and offers an inimitable record of your role in giving something valuable back to your chosen field. Having walked in your shoes as an early career researcher, I know the excitement that comes with stretching into new areas of responsibility. I agree with C.S. Lewis who calls experience “that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.”

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