LINGUIST List 15.242

Thu Jan 22 2004

Disc: Re: Blind Peer Review

Editor for this issue: Sarah Murray <sarahlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Spencer, Andrew J, peer reviewing system
2. Susana Sotillo, About Journals and Independent Journal Evaluation
3. Felecia Briscoe, Blind Peer Reviews

A brief comment arising from the postings by Ronals Sheen and Martin
Haspelmath. The pro's and con's of blind peer reviewing are a lively
topic of debate in other disciplines, for instance, the natural
sciences. Virtually every month some issue of the (weekly) journal
'Nature' seems to contain correspondence or editorial comment on the
matter. Physicists and biologists in particular are sufficiently
concerned about the perceived problems with peer reviewing that they
have set up or are contemplating unrefereed web-based journal
publishing. I think that any debate about this topic in the context of
linguistics should begin with a survey of what other disciplines think
about this. My understanding of the matter is that it's relatively
clear what the problems are but far from clear what the best solutions
are.

Andrew Spencer

I believe that physicists and biologists have faced similar problems.
I read Joao Magueijo's account of the peer review process in Physics,
among other things (Faster than the Speed of Light). Very
interesting! Most scientists are opting for online journals.

-Susana Sotillo

Re: Haspelmath, Linguist 15.182

I agree about the unnecessarily long peer review process. My other
concern is why people are not allowed to submit to more than one
journal at a time. It would seen in the interest of maintaining equal
power relations that we should have the opportunity to say ''no'' to a
journal just as the journal has the opportunity to say ''no'' to us.

-Felecia Briscoe