Peer Review


What: Read and critique three of your peers. Specific reviews will be assigned. This is worth 20% of your final project grade.

Where: Carmen Peer Reviews

When: Approximately week 9

Why: To experience the peer-review process that scientists experience as part of the publication process. To provide constructive critique to your peers.

Directions:  In addition to writing your short-format article, each student will also be responsible for providing peer reviews for 3 other articles from your classmates. Prof. Lower will assign each student 3 articles to review. The reviews will be based on these criteria:

  1. Intellectual Impact of the Article
    1. How well does the article function as a piece of writing (i.e. quality of language, exposition, description, voice)?
    2. Is the article scientifically accurate?
    3. Does the design, flow and the creativity of the article encourage learning?
  2. Broader Impact of the Article
    1. How well does the article function as a piece of teaching (i.e. quality of pedagogy, clarity of explanations)?
    2. Does the article contain all the necessary components needed to describe the story or are some things missing that could enhance the story?
  3. Technical Details of the Article
    1. Has the author included at least ten sources and at least 6 from primary journals?
    2. Has the author included at least 4 high-quality figures and/or tables? Did the author provide a reference for each and every figure and/or table? Could the figures be improved, if so how can they be improved?
    3. Has the author properly referenced their sources throughout their article with either a number or using author’s last name?
    4. Is the article approximately 1,000 words long?
  4. Based on your answers above, what is your final recommendation?
    1. Publish the article in its current state (the article is excellent).
    2. Publish the article with minor revisions (the article is very good).
    3. Publish the article with major revisions (the article need substantial work before it is ready for publication; this could include major changes required to fix figures/tables, major changes required to large portions of the text).