Friday, August 3, 2007

Peer Review

I just read a useful paper on peer review in archaeology in the January 2007 SAA Archaeological Record:

Lanata, José Luis, Mark Aldenderfer, and Michael A. Jochim
2007
The Peer-Review Process for American Antiquity and Latin American Antiquity. SAA Archaeological Record January 2007:12-15.
http://www.saa.org/publications/theSAAarchRec/jan07.pdf

Yes, I know its 6 months old, but I am only now starting to catch up on journals and such after fieldwork in Mexico from January to July. I did a little checking, and there are quite a few good resources on peer review on the internet, quite a change from the situation when I was a grad student and then new PhD and had trouble finding good information on professional practices in archaeology. Here are a couple of sources to check:

Kris Hirst has a nice discussion on her About.com site:
http://archaeology.about.com/od/pethroughpg/a/peer_review.htm

The Wikipedia even has a very good discussion of peer review in general:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review

(Why can’t they get good entries on really important topics like the Aztecs?)

My primary reference was always this book, which is still very good due its continuing updated editions:

Luey, Beth
1995
Handbook for Academic Authors. 3rd ed. Cambridge University Press, New York.

I recommend Luey to any young academic (grad student, junior faculty); she give very useful information on journals, book publishers, editing, etc.

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