Post 6 in the Navigating Academic Publishing series
For the sixth post of the series Navigating Academic Publishing, I provide an overview the peer review process for academic journals, from the overview to some nuts and bolts about the behind-the-scenes discourse. I also offer advice on how to navigate the process most effectively based on my past experiences to aid other early career scholars.
What is peer review?
As I tell my students, the main purpose of peer review is to distinguish something as a scholarly and/or otherwise expert resource. For academic publishing, peer review is often conducted anonymously, wherein the reviewer/s and author/s do not know the identities of one another. (Antiquated, ableist language refers to this process as “blind” review.) These measures attempt to reduce biases from either party and seek to center the work rather than the people at this stage.
Peer review, or any other means of sharing your writing, requires vulnerability, trust, and openness. In my experience, editors and reviewers are on your side more than they are resistant to your writing. In other words, most editors and peer reviewers do not read a submission looking for reasons to reject it. They read it with the intent to improve the essay.
Most often, there will be at least 2 reviewers’ feedback on your essay (or conference) submission. The content, length, and quality of reviews can vary widely. Good reviews will show thoughtful engagement with your ideas and offer actionable feedback. Not every review is a good one, though. The editor will often offer their synthesis/understanding of the reviewer feedback in their decision.
Further, the suggestions offered by reviewers can often vary greatly, and it will be your task to balance them in revisions as much as you see fit. Extra reviewers will be called in if the two original reviewers have polar opinions on the essay (e.g., one says revise and resubmit minor, and the other says reject outright). If that occurs, you will usually be given the feedback from all three, but the editor may give preference to the reviews more closely aligned with one another—don’t ignore the outlier review either, though, there might be valuable critique in it.
I begin considering the peer review process when selecting a prospective venue for an essay or idea. The reviewer pool is largely the same within disciplinary journals (e.g., most NCA journals are tapping the same wells of scholars for reviews), but thinking about interdisciplinary reviewers for interdisciplinary journals will also shift how an essay is constructed. The prospective journal will also, more directly, affect how many words are allotted for the argument. For these reasons, I like to write potential articles with specific journals in mind. I have a table of the journals most relevant to my area/research to consult when deciding. The table includes word counts, scopes, timelines, and more that can affect deciding where I want to publish. (Not everyone does this—they will write an article-length essay, and then decide which journal is the best fit. Both are valid and usually a matter of personal preference.)
But what actually happens during peer review?
A General Roadmap
Some journals will have the average “wait times” for each stage of review listed in their metrics, but it’s not always standard. The usual order of operations will unfold as follows:
- Submission to first decision: The editor or editorial staff will review the submission. The decision here is a relatively “easy” one, as it boils down to questions of “is this a coherent argument?” and/or “is this a fit for the scopes and aims of the journal?”
- A rejection here is called a “desk rejection.” Editors will usually give a reason for the rejection, but not always.
- Often, if you flag in your cover letter that you are a (1) grad student, (2) early career, and/or (3) newer to publishing, journals with a commitment to professionalization will be more willing to send submissions to review for the experience it offers. The submission must still be coherent, inventive, and original.
- Review period: reviewers tend to be given 6 weeks, but the timeline only applies (1) if the first reviewers accept it and (2) are timely. Each time a new reviewer needs to be solicited, it backs up the timeline.
- Reviewers are first asked if they are willing to complete the review and offered either a preview of the abstract or given access to the full (anonymous) essay text to base their decision.
- Should the reviewers accept, they will be given a loose rubric for their review. At minimum, reviewers will be asked to designate reject, reject & resubmit, revise and resubmit, or accept. Portals will also ask for comments to the author/s and comments to the editor/s. The author/s only see the comments to them.
- Some portals will have supplemental questions for the reviewers, usually about the fit of the submission, but that can vary from journal to journal.
- It’s not uncommon to get “ghosted” at this stage. Usually, if you know it’s out for review and haven’t heard anything after 3+ months, you can reach out politely asking to check in on the process. (You can usually couch it in, “I’m planning out my projects for the upcoming semester and want to leave any necessary time for this project as well.”)
- Reviews to second decision: usually 7-14 working days, but could be extended if reviewers are split and another reviewer is consulted. At this stage, the editor is reading the reviewer feedback and synthesizing a decision. If this is the first round of review, the editor will likely also re/read the essay with reviewer comments in mind. From there, they will make their decision, which can differ from the reviewers’. For the most part, editors will “defer,” in a sense, to the reviewers, but they are not bound to the reviewers’ decisions.
- Revisions: If applicable, author/s are offered 6 weeks as standard to complete revisions and resubmit the essay, but you can politely request longer. Ultimately, you are responsible for addressing each point of the reviewers’ feedback. You don’t necessarily have to accept the feedback—over-resistance to reviewer (and/or editorial) advice will not bode well—but you do need to give reasons behind what wasn’t changed. Once the revisions are accomplished, you craft the resubmission letter (see below) explaining how the essay was changed.
- Some journals/editors will ask for a highlighted or somehow annotated version of the essay with resubmission. If that’s the case, including a “plain” version of the essay can also be helpful. For instance, some forms of annotation may not be compatible with document readers for reviewers who use them, and/or some dis/abilities could conflict with how annotations appear (e.g., colorblindness). Also, if the essay is accepted, there’s already a plain version of the essay on file so it can seamlessly move to press.
- Acceptance: Once the essay is accepted, the stages move at various paces. There will be copyediting that occurs via Word documents; then, page proofs are either PDFs or done in a specific portal. Once proofs are finalized the article may go immediately to online publication, or it may be “in press” until the next issue of the journal is published. Editors should give rough timelines for each stage as if that information is available.
The submission of the first version is what gets the ball rolling on the entire process. (Personally, I love peer review—the feedback, the discourse, etc.—and I tend to jump headfirst into submitting to journals. Sometimes this bites me, sometimes it works out.)
Preparing the Submission
Most journals will ask for a Word document of the essay, but some have started asking for PDFs. Just be sure to double-check the author instructions before each submission. Authors will also have to produce a full version of the essay (with the title page and identifying information) and an anonymous version for peer reviewers. Taylor & Francis has a helpful guide on ensuring a submission file is anonymous.
Any Taylor & Francis journal has a downloadable template for essays. Other publishers and/or journals will provide a style guide in the author instructions section of their webpage. Style guidelines matter. My one (true) desk rejection for an article was for “not following the style guidelines” per the editor.
While not necessarily required for submitting to a journal, I prepare a cover letter for each submission/essay. Some journal portals will have an explicit request or place for a cover letter, while others won’t even mention it. I like to write multiple versions of the cover letter while drafting to help me organize my thoughts throughout the composing of the essay.
I tend to use a pretty standard structure for the contents of the cover letter:
- “Thank you for considering ‘Title of Essay’ for review and publication in Name of Journal.”
- I’ll offer a short elevator pitch or 2 sentences about the essay’s contribution.
- Paragraph that overviews the argument and artifacts in language different than the abstract.
- Summary of contribution. Example: “As a result of these arguments, rhetorical studies can…”
- Housekeeping information:
- Word Count
- Past “lives” of the essay (conferences, grad work, other journal submissions). It might seem counterintuitive to tell one editor that another journal rejected the essay, but you should also speak to how you improved the submission after getting the rejection feedback (even if just a desk rejection).
- For example, “A previous version of this essay was rejected by another journal, and I have made revisions to this submission based on reviewer and/or editor feedback to address x.”
- At worst, a previous rejection shows your work was strong enough to warrant scholarly feedback and that you are open to the revision process.
- Possible reviewer conflicts. Include anyone who has knowledge of the essay itself (e.g., if it began as a dissertation chapter, list your committee and advisor). Some portals will have a place for you to input these individuals’ names and emails, but if not letting the editor know can expedite the review process. (I’ve had multiple essays sent to mentors and peers who have intimate knowledge of the essay, and they have to reject the essay due to a conflict.)
The one thing that will be expected is a cover letter with each resubmission of the revised essay, also called the resubmission letter. (très original, non?)
Revise & Resubmit
This is Thee Goal of peer review. Nothing is accepted the first time; a lot of stuff is not accepted even the second time. Revise and Resubmit (or even reject and resubmit) is the aim because it keeps the door open.
Tiara R. Na’puti told our grad class that revise-and-resubmission letters can make or break a second review. The attention and care demonstrated toward the revisions will often prime the reviewers’ (and editors’) perceptions of the actual revised essay. Below I’ve embedded examples of cover and resubmission letters that came from my first association journal publication.
I recognize reviewer feedback is (1) unpaid labor, (2) “privileged” information, and (3) meant to remain anonymous. I have used my own cover and resubmission letters here and censored all direct reviewer comments from the text to show how I navigated the feedback as a new author. I do not mean to position this as a “negative” experience. Rather, I chose this example in particular because there were multiple rounds of review and a couple places I pushed back. This was also one of my first experiences with publishing so there’s a level of over-explanation in the letters that may be helpful to those learning the process.
First Submission
This is a relatively standard cover letter with the explanation of the essay with an eye to how it fits within the journal.
At this stage, you can also list the possible reviewer conflicts. I did not supply those in this cover letter because the portal had a separate place for authors to enter that information.
Revise & Resub Round 1
This letter was the first time speaking directly to the reviewers. The format of a resubmission letter can vary. I tend to prefer synthesizing and trying to address the things that were common across both/all sets of reviewer comments and format a more narrative-style letter describing the changes. However, other authors prefer moving point-by-point and addressing each piece of reviewer feedback in isolation.
Regardless of the format of the letter, you want to be sure that you demonstrate clear consideration of the comments and offer thoughtful engagement–even if you’re speaking back to a point (as I’ve done in this example).
Revise & Resub Round 2
In the opening of this R&R letter, I mentioned that Reviewer 2 had suggested an accept with minor revisions, while R1 still had more edits they wanted. While most journals share both reviews with the authors and reviewers, it can be helpful to flag/remind a resistant reviewer that another has accepted the essay. You will still need to address whatever comments were left by the resistant reviewer.
In this case, R1 was asking about events they believed would bear on the phenomenon of creating 911. However, the archive did not show any connection between the two moments, so I explained, double-checking that to assuage the reviewer’s hesitancy.
Revise & Resubmit Round 3
This was the last round, and I think only the editor read the revisions, but I still addressed the letter to the remaining reviewer. (This was a little petty because I was getting tired of what I felt like was a reviewer being resistant for the sake of being resistant. I wouldn’t recommend doing this necessarily.) The big thing here relates back to one of my commitments in writing to avoid any pejoratives for groups I’m not a part of. The reviewer rehearsed a few non-racist comments on the pejorative, but I sought to find an anti-racist alternative.
The essay was accepted after this, thankfully.
A Love Letter to Rejection
Rejection is not fun, but it is part of the process. My mentor, Phaedra C. Pezzullo, compares the experience of a journal rejection to the stages of grief—beginning with denial and ending with acceptance. I tend to agree, but as someone who is neurodivergent, I also know that rejection can land differently for each of us.
Still, it is unavoidable. My very first journal submission ever was rejected…with fourteen pages of feedback. While a “good” sign of readers “engaged” in the idea, all I saw was the rejection across every single one of the 14 pages, or found the comment “this should be a book” unhelpful when I was trying to publish an article as a grad student.
The goal for any rejection, though, is not to wallow, but to use that rejection and information to better the submission/essay.
My suggestion is to begin getting used to the sensation of hearing “no” about your writing, but keep in mind:
- You, as a person, are not your writing.
- A rejection from a journal does not mean the idea is unviable; it doesn’t even mean the essay is unviable.
- It only means: in this current iteration, with this current editorial staff, and this current reviewer feedback, the essay is not currently a fit for this particular journal. That’s a lot of qualifiers with that “no.”
- Start with lower stakes by submitting to conferences (if not already). It is the same idea of submitting and getting anonymous feedback.
- It is part and parcel of the job. You’re going to stumble; you’re going to meet a resistant reviewer; it’s going to happen—not if, when. rip off the band-aid.
Often, for emerging scholars, journal articles are a whole new genre of writing. You’re going to experience the “growing pains” of becoming a scholar. I joke that grad school is like America’s Next Top Model; the “challenges” are the classes, and the finale runway show is the dissertation. Are those things ~exactly~ what that “job” of being a scholar or supermodel? No, it’s an approximation that gets you prepped for the “real” job. So there will be a slight learning curve even after “winning” your season of the show, a.k.a. graduating.
I cannot overstate this enough: The goal is a revise and resubmit decision, major or minor (or even a reject and resubmit keeps the door open). The goal is not to get published. The goal is to get a revise and resubmit because that leads to publication.
What has your experience with peer review been? How have you navigated the feedback from reviewers, especially if it diverged from one reviewer to the next?
The next post will look at the reviewer side of peer review, discussing how to approach and conduct reviews in a way that best sets the author up for success.
Myles W. Mason, PhD 
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