SFU EDUC 804: Guidelines for Peer Reviews
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As you may know, peer review of scholarly work is a core practice in the academic community. Many facets of academic life are at least partly determined through peer review, including publications, presentations, promotion, tenure, and access to government grants. As you progress through the program you may choose to submit some of your own work for presentation at conferences, and/or for publication. If so, this experience may help prepare you; but regardless, your experience of graduate school would not be complete without a taste of what peer review is like.

Your assignment

You will prepare brief reviews of two peers’ draft submissions for the “tradition” paper. Each of these reviews should be no more than two pages long, single spaced. Above all, they should be constructive. Rather than simply identifying areas for improvement, you should do your best to offer advice on how the improvements might be made. Below are a few questions to help guide your thinking as you read your peers’ work. These are not offered as a checklist -- you do not need to write your review around them. Also, if other questions or better questions occur to you, by all means ask them!

Guidelines

Before reading your peers’ papers, review the description of the paper and the review criteria on the course web site. Your goal here is to help them produce the best submissions they can. After reading the paper, ask yourself:

• What are the strongest aspects of the paper as it stands? When the paper is revised, what do you want to make sure is not taken out or changed?
• Does the paper respond fully to the assignment as stated (the list of questions)?
  Are there specific gaps you could help the authors address? Explain these as best you can.
• Is the prose clear and easy to follow? Are there particular places where the author “loses” you? How might the language be made clearer?
• Does the paper hang together well? Did you find any transitions between paragraphs or sections difficult to follow?
• Are the various parts of the paper in proportion? For instance, are some sections longer or more detailed than you think they need to be to serve their intended purpose? Are some so short that they are not contributing in a clear way to the overall purpose of the paper?
• Does the paper draw appropriately from our readings and discussion in the course to strengthen the ideas it presents (e.g. to clarify the meaning of the terms used, to explain sources of inspiration, to provide examples of ideas that have “worked” or not)?
• Can you think of any other specific ways to enhance the paper (for instance, by re-arranging sections or paragraphs, adding diagrams or sketches, etc.)?