nov07b.indd


Phillip M. Edwards 

Developing as a writer 
Refereeing manuscripts for peer-reviewed LIS journals 

Refereeing a manuscript is a process of intimate writing in which the referee in­
fluences the substance and style of another’s 
work, typically in preparation for either 
publication or presentation. The product of 
this process—essentially a written narrative 
shared between you, an author or set of coau­
thors, and an editor—allows you to channel 
your knowledge, expertise, and perspectives 
as a professional into constructive feedback 
on a writing­in­progress. 

Additionally, this process allows you to 
closely monitor developments in the fi eld 
that are relevant to your work and interests 
prior to their publication. I have found that 
refereeing forces me to read more broadly 
and deeply in a way that ultimately strength­
ens my formal writing. Although many of the 
suggestions that follow are written specifi cally 
with refereeing article manuscripts in mind, 
similar strategies and processes generally 
apply to refereeing conference papers, post­
ers, and other genres that are subject to peer 
review. 

Becoming a referee 
Knapp and Daly (2004) discuss three ways 
in which you could become a referee for a 
journal: 

1) being recommended by another 
scholar who is a reviewer, a colleague 
of the editor, or on the journal’s edito­
rial board; 2) being visible to the editor 
through the quality of your work or 
other scholarly activities, such as pub­
lication of an insightful book review; 
or 3) volunteering your services and 
documenting your areas of expertise.1 

In my experience, and particularly for 
beginning writers, methods 1 and 3 have 
proven far more common. After joining 
the pool of referees, you may be part of a 
“blind” review process (i.e., the author does 
not know who the referees are, but the ref­
erees know the identity of the author) or a 
“double­blind” review process (i.e., neither 
referees nor the author know each other’s 
respective identities). 

In general, I will referee a manuscript 
when two conditions are satisfi ed: 

• I already know something about the 
topic of the article or the method of inves­
tigation. 

• I read the journal regularly and have 
a feel for what a typical article looks like in 
that publication. 

The editor will share the set of criteria 
upon which referees should base their rec­
ommendations along with a reviewing form 
in which to enter comments. 

Suggestions for reviewing a 
manuscript 

• O f f e r  c o n s t r u c t ive  f e e d b a c k  t h a t  
wo u l d  h e l p  t h e  a u t h o r  t u r n  t h e  p a p e r  
into a publishable piece of  work. Con­
scientious editors typically weed out any 
woefully unspectacular manuscripts before 
sending them to referees, and this act indi­
cates some amount of faith that the editor 
has regarding the prospects of the manu­
script. (This is somewhat less applicable 

Phillip M. Edwards is a PhD candidate in information 
science at the Information School of the University of 
Washington, pme2@u.washington.edu 
© 2007 Phillip M. Edwards 

C&RL News November 2007  630 

mailto:pme2@u.washington.edu


to manuscripts submitted for conferences, 
where every submission might receive some 
attention from referees.) 

• Resist the urge to copyedit. Editors 
and publishers deftly catch typographic 
errors—mistyped references, errors in for­
matting and layout, spelling problems—so 
commenting on specific grammar, style, or 
usage is not an efficient use of your time. 
Limit your comments to substantive aspects 
of the text: the logic, clarity, and coherence 
of the argument; the incorporation of rel­
evant literature; and the significance of the 
findings or conclusions. I have reviewed 
manuscripts that were in obvious need of 
thorough proofreading, and making note 
of this through a general comment on the 
manuscript was suffi cient. 

• Be specific and suppor t your cri-
t i q u e  w i t h  e x a m p l e s  f r o m  t h e  m a n u -
script whenever possible. Fittingly, this 
suggestion is best supported through an 
example: a comment such as “The introduc­
tion is unclear” might be less helpful for 
authorial revisions than a comment like “In 
the introduction, the author mentions the re­
lationship between issues X and Y. Through­
out the article, X appears often, while Y 
does not appear until the conclusion. The 
author should either consider reinforcing 
this proposed relationship throughout the 
narrative or focus the discussion on issue 
X exclusively.” 

• S u gg e s t  a d d i t i o n a l  a u t h o r s  a n d  
p e r s p e c t ive s  t h a t  wo u l d  a u g m e n t  t h e  
arguments. It is difficult, if not impossible, 
for anyone to have complete knowledge of 
the literature, and you should point out unin­
tentional omissions of relevant background 
material to the author. 

• Remember that the editor makes the 
final decision of  whether to publish the 
manuscript. In most cases, referees do not 
have direct authority over whether a manu­
script is published; they present evidence to 
support the case for—or, in some instances, 
against—the publication of the manuscript. 
You may be afforded the opportunity, 
however, to send separate comments to the 

editor and the author. When presented with 
an option to convey additional feedback to 
the editors, I typically identify and reinforce 
those comments that are non­negotiable 
(e.g., errors in data analysis) and those com­
ments that reasonable people may disagree 
with (e.g., judgments about relevant and 
irrelevant literature). 

• Write to meet the deadline provided 
by the editor. Letting a manuscript languish 
on your desk or your hard drive is discourte­
ous to authors and editors alike. If you are 
unable to review and return the manuscript 
in a timely manner, please let your editor 
know so that the manuscript can be assigned 
to another referee. 

• Be prepared to break up the refer-
eeing across several blocks of  time. Re­
viewing a manuscript when you are rested, 
gracious, and alert is far more effective than 
trying to do so when you are tired, irritable, 
or distracted. When an article appears in 
print, an author will occasionally tip his or 
her hat to the anonymous referees as part 
of the acknowledgements; this is one of the 
benefits of the process that justifies all of the 
investments you have made to strengthen 
the author’s writing. 

Additional resources 
For those interested in the history and 
mechanics of the refereeing process from 
multiple perspectives, I recommend Mar­
garet Stieg Dalton’s review (“Refereeing of 
scholarly works for primary publishing”) in 
the Annual Review of Information Science 
and Technology (1995, vol. 30, p. 213–50). 

Rob Kitchin and Duncan Fuller intro­
duce additional strategies for reviewing 
manuscripts in Appendix 3 (“Refereeing for 
Journals, Publishers and Conferences”) of 
The Academic’s Guide to Publishing (Sage, 
2005). 

Note 
1. M. L. Knapp and J. A. Daly, A Guide 

to Publishing in Scholarly Communication 
Journals, 3rd ed. (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence 
Erlbaum Associates, 2004). 

November 2007  631 C&RL News