Following up on Steven’s posts about reviewing, I wanted to pitch in with my thoughts about reviewing.
Conferences like AOM allow us to start reviewing academic literature fairly early in our academic careers (which is great and we should all definitely participate in this!! refer to Steven’s post). But the catch with reviewing this early in the game is that there is a high probability that we ourselves have not been at the receiving end of any reviews. And then the chances are high that we don’t know how reviews can hurt!! Hell, even good reviews can! In fact, whenever I get a review back, I put it under lock and key for several days before I have the courage to look at it. So, when a review is written insensitively, it can be especially damaging. And this problem of bad review writing is not just restricted to us novices – I have seen some good, reasonable, esteemed people write the most barbed reviews.
Whenever I write a review, I always think about what I would think if this were my paper and if I were to be receiving this review (I dont know if I use this simple rule that my parents taught me in my everyday life but I definitely try and abide by this when I review :)). There are some great articles on good reviewing that I read during my class on academic communication with JoAnne Yates. You may not strive for the ‘Best Reviewer’ award that OCIS confers, but definitely go read some of the articles that JoAnne had on her syllabus:
AMJ Reviewer Guidelines, http://aom.pace.edu/amjnew/reviewer_guidelines.htm
Allen Lee, “Reviewing a Manuscript for Publication,” http://www.people.vcu.edu/~aslee/referee.htm
Allen Lee, Editor’s Comments, MISQ, Vol. 23, No. 4, http://www.misq.org/archivist/vol/no23/issue4/edstat.html
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