Description
Book SynopsisPeer review is the process by which submissions to journals and presses are evaluated with regard to suitability for publication. Armed with the results of numerous empirical studies, critics have leveled a variety of harsh charges against peer review such as: reviewers and editors are biased toward authors from prestigious institutions, peer review is biased toward established ideas, and it does a poor job of detecting errors and fraud. While an immense literature has sprouted on peer review in the sciences and social sciences, Peer Review is the first book-length, wide-ranging study of peer review that utilizes methods and resources of contemporary philosophy. Its six chapters cover the following topics: the tension between peer review and the liberal notion that truth emerges when ideas proliferate in the marketplace of ideas; arguments for and against blind review of submissions; the alleged conservatism of peer review; the anomalous nature of book reviewing; the status of non-peer-reviewed publications, such as invited articles or Internet publications, in tenure and promotion cases; and the future of peer review in the age of the Internet. The author has also included several key readings about peer review.
Trade ReviewThis is a useful study especially for those philosophically minded scholars who like to consider every angle of every possible contingency. Read it and rethink peer review! -- Robert Hauptman * Journal of Information Ethics *
Table of ContentsChapter 2 Introduction Chapter 3 Peer Review and the Marketplace of Ideas Chapter 4 Bias and Anonymity in the Peer Review Process Chapter 5 Is Peer Review Inherently Conservative? Should It Be? Chapter 6 Peerless Review: The Strange Case of Book Reviews Chapter 7 What Should Count? Chapter 8 Where Do We Go From Here? Peer Review in the Age of the Internet Part 9 Supplementary Essays Chapter 10 Ethics and Manuscript Reviewing Chapter 11 Why Be My Colleague's Keeper? Moral Justifications for Peer Review Chapter 12 Peer Review Practices of Psychological Journals: The Fate of Published Articles, Submitted Again Chapter 15 No Bias, No Merit: The Case Against Blind Submission Chapter 16 Fish on Blind Submission Chapter 17 Reply to Skoblow Chapter 18 Revelation: a Physicist Experiments with Cultural Studies Chapter 23 The Invisible Hand of Peer Review
