Reviewer Guidelines
For most authors, this is a first experience submitting a manuscript for peer-review in an academic setting. Moreover, in keeping with the Ed Review’s mandate to be inclusive of the broad range of scholarship within
SFU’s Faculty of Education, in addition to traditional academic papers, submissions can also be in alternative formats such as multimedia, a poetic mediation on a subject, a personal reflection, as so on. The expectation is
that you ‘read’ for flow and structure with sensitivity to these parameters. What’s more, while academic papers may not have the rigorous level of research required of well-established journals, submissions will be expected to meet standards consistent with graduate level writing. As a reviewer, you are looking to see if the piece carries the message—is it engaging, thought provoking. Is it clear or are there too many ideas, confusing? Is it well written or do grammatical/structural errors get in the way of understanding?
Some additional considerations:
i) Each submission should be 10-20 double-spaced pages. For submissions that exceed 20 pages, please provide recommendations to author(s) on making their submissions more concise.
ii) We encourage reviewers to put comments into the document itself. In particular, please provide comments/corrections/additions in the margins of the text, using the edit and track changes function of your word processor. If possible, reviewers can include a separate or conjoining document that evaluates the global aspects of the piece.
iii) Please comment on areas where the author(s) need(s) additional references, examples, or explanations. As well, indicate areas where ideas can be better organized, better structured and areas where argumentation can
be improved. Specifically, if the author does not draw clear links to education, please provide recommendations for connections to education can be made clearer. You may use the following template of questions to address
these issues:
a) What are some of the strengths of this paper?
b) What aspects of the paper need improvement (i.e., additional references, examples and explanations are required; structure, organization and argumentation)
c) Do(es) the author(s) draw clear links to education? If not, how can links be made clearer?
d) Was there recommendation for further research or inquiry? If not, please provide recommendations for further inquiry as you see necessary.
iv) Please provide a recommendation for I) Acceptance Submission; II) Revisions Required; III) Resubmit for Review; IV) Resubmit Elsewhere; V) Decline Submission. Please include your reasons for your recommendation.
v) Finally, you may send a confidential note to the editor if there are issues you do not want to convey to the author.