Peer review makes the world go round.Well, at least the academic world.It’s based on a simple enough premise: if your academic work is passable other scholars will be able to tell.It’s a process fraught with peril, however.Scholars, being human, are subject to fits of pique or of hypersensitivity, or just having gotten out of the wrong side of bed that morning.Perfectly good projects can be shot down with a single, well-placed arrow. Or even dart. Problem is, there’s no better system for deciding if academic work is adequate, or even good.There may be some objective measure out there in the universe, but if there is we don’t have access to it.We have to rely on peer review.
During my teaching years, which numbered nearly twenty, I was never asked to peer review anything.My first invitation came while I was working as an editor.Of course I said “yes.”A number of scholars, however, don’t share the basic reality that if nobody peer reviewed their work, they’d never get published.Many scholars decline offers to review their colleagues’ work.I even had a very senior scholar once blithely tell me that he had his own research to do, so why should he take time to review that of others.Professional reserve prevented me from pointing out that if his colleagues felt the same way he’d be as unpublished as a fresh doctorate-holder.Scholarship is a cooperative venture, no matter how many Lone Rangers ride the cuesta.So why is it so difficult to find peer reviewers?
I’ll read your book if you’ll read mine!
Something I’ve noticed is that many scholars are coddled.Constantly told that they’re brilliant and gifted, they come to believe it like miniature Trumps.More to the point, perhaps, is the shrinking number of academic positions.The few who hold actual jobs are bombarded with other tasks, including committee work, advisory duties, and sometimes even teaching (depending on the adjunct pool).I know it’s tough.Been there, done that.Nevertheless, academia cannot survive without the basic peer reviewer.Education is a cooperative venture.We may imagine the academic alone in her or his study, but breakthroughs generally come through when people work together.Of course, my job is one performed in isolation.Increasingly, academics can be found not in their offices, but working remotely from home.Is the sense of “peer” itself breaking down?My own book, Nightmares with the Bible, was slowed down by peer review.In a sense I’m glad it was.Hi ho Silver, away!
