Mentor reviewing: A retrospective on an experiment

Abstract

This incarnation of the editor for Communication Studies embarked an interesting journey involving the creation of a mentorship review board (the term was coined by a departmental colleague, Kathryn Olson). Essentially, mentorship reviewing was the idea of having doctoral students write reviews to submitted manuscripts and then having senior scholars critique those reviews. Normally, a manuscript receives three reviews from members of the editorial board evaluating the suitability of a manuscript for publication. The doctoral reviewer served as a fourth reviewer to the The doctoral reviewer received the letter of decision as well as the other reviews for the manuscript. At the same time the letter of decision and reviews were sent, another copy was sent to a senior scholar (along with the original submission). The mentor wrote a response to the doctoral review and provide insight and critique about the process of reviewing as well as a perspective the process as an outside observer. The goal was to provide the doctoral student a hands on experience in the review process to permit them to learn the practical mechanics of the RECRUITMENT OF MENTORS AND STUDENTS Doctoral students were recruited using a variety of methods. We would attend conferences and hand information to attract students. We would send letters each year to directors of doctoral programs in the region asking them to pass out information. We would like to acknowledge the help of some persons getting students to sign up and participate (in particular Dawn Braithewaite and William Seiler at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln). The opportunity presented we believe a unique opportunity for doctoral students to prepare for one aspect of becoming a member of a faculty. Recruiting mentors was easier than we anticipated. The more experienced (senior, older, etc.) scholars have many times served editorial boards and done fair share of reviewing. Many of the mentors had served as editors for books and journals and understood the process from every angle. The number of persons turning down this opportunity was almost zero. We had been worried that having done their bit for God and country, many would ask for the torch to pass (or they would be too busy). Our feeling was the most senior scholars are committed to improving the discipline and many like challenges. The thought of doing something new and interesting is always something attractive to many in our profession, particularly when it might improve the profession. We think that sometimes we underestimate the willingness of senior scholars to take new and interesting challenges, which this opportunity provided. One senior scholar told the editor, the review was a difficult process, having to sit down and articulate what the review process was all about and then think about the dynamics of the manuscript and the place of the particular effort in the process. But the process served a valuable educational function for both the mentors and the students, both parties had to reflect a bit the process and articulate some of the rules or procedures. For the mentors, the decision rules had developed after years of reviewing and much practice. For the mentors the process was transparent and required little reflection, but serving as a mentor required reflection and thoughtful articulation. For the doctoral students, the review writing was difficult because the recommendation involves making a professional evaluation with potentially an all or nothing outcome. The doctoral reviewers became faced with having to actually evaluate a manuscript (and they did not know whether the manuscript was generated by another graduate student or someone with 40 years of consistent publication). The doctoral reviewers had to come to terms with the blind nature of the process and the uncertainty of making known an opinion that may or may not be consistent with the opinion of others. …