A Peer-Reviewed Scholarly Article
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A Peer-Reviewed Scholarly Article Petar Jandrić 1,2 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Keywords Academic article . Scholarly article . Peer review . Postdigital . Knowledge
ecology . Political economy . Epistemology . Knowledge capitalism . Knowledge socialism . Viral modernity
Introduction Academic publishing is central to knowledge development. In words of Richard Feynman (1969: 320), ‘[e]ach generation that discovers something from its experience must pass that on, but it must pass that on with a delicate balance of respect and disrespect, so that the [human] race does not inflict its errors too rigidly on its youth, but it does pass on the accumulated wisdom, plus the wisdom that it may not be wisdom’. Since 1665, when Henry Oldenburg founded the first modern scientific journal, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, this delicate balance is achieved through various peer review practices. Despite their long history, today’s peer review practices are often opaque. According to Jackson et al. (2018: 95–96), peer review ‘has become one of the most mysterious and contentious academic practices, causing anguish for many academics—both reviewers, and those whose work is reviewed—and sometimes more distress than is necessary’. This opacity and mystery are somewhat justified by diversity of peer review practices across scholarly publications, disciplines and genres (journal article, book, book chapter, project report, white paper and so on). Peer review is formally taught only tangentially in research method courses, and junior scholars are expected to pick up the research culture of their discipline as a part of their own knowledge formation and development as researchers. Those working with mentors less oriented towards publication and those working
* Petar Jandrić [email protected]
1
Zagreb University of Applied Sciences, Zagreb, Croatia
2
University of Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton, UK
Postdigital Science and Education
across disciplines and research cultures need to figure out sets of invisible rules relating to academic publishing largely on their own; this process can easily take years and is also supported, or not, by the networks scholars belong to. This article aims at lifting some mystery and distress related to academic publishing. The article outlines a complete life cycle of a double-blind peer-reviewed scholarly article from choosing the right journal to the article’s post-publication impact. It suggests some good practices for authors, reviewers and editors. It briefly reviews key issues related to the political economy and epistemology of academic publishing. Finally, it outlines attempts at creating a new postdigital knowledge ecology in Postdigital Science and Education. While the presented life cycle of a double-blind peer-reviewed scholarly article is based on the example of Postdigital Science and Education, these practices are fairly standard for journals across the humanities and social sciences and may be of interest to scholars in diverse fields and disciplines.
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