What You Can Expect of the Peer Review Process
According to its website, Peer Review Week is a “global celebration of the vital role peer review plays in ensuring the quality and integrity of research.” This year it runs September 14-18, and the theme is “Peer Review Capacity: Volume, Speed, and Quality.”
Peer review is an essential step in the scholarly publishing process, and university presses remain deeply committed to the rigorous evaluation of the scholarship they publish. Here at University of Michigan Press, acquisitions editors peer review all books and multimodal titles. Our internal guidelines are aligned with the AUPresses Peer Review Best Practices and have specifications for monographs, trade books, textbooks, translations, new editions of our previously published books, re-releases of books originally published elsewhere, short form books, and new series. Peer review is important because it helps editors make informed decisions on whether to pursue a book project and what the project will contribute to its field(s).
At the advance contract stage, we can send proposals with 2-3 sample chapters to 1-2 reviewers. When we have the full manuscript, we send it to 2 reviewers. We select reviewers based on their area of study, publishing history or other proven expertise in said area, and rank as is appropriate to the book project. For interdisciplinary book projects, we would seek a mix of scholars who can represent its different areas to get a fuller view of the project. We often ask authors to suggest people for us to contact, however we complete a thorough check for conflicts of interest before contacting any potential reviewer. Peer reviewers cannot be completed by current or former colleagues or collaborators with the author of the work being reviewed.
Acquisitions sends a short list of questions for reviewers to answer in their report. These questions address the project's goals, organization, strengths, weaknesses, and more, culminating in the reviewer's recommendation for or against advancement in the publishing process. Some specific series or publishing areas at the press may have slightly different questions that speak to their own specificities. We welcome peer reviews that answer the questions in their ordered list or in a more narrative format. Manuscripts are the intellectual property of their authors, so reviewers are not permitted to put manuscripts through LLMs.
About the author
Haley Winkle acquires titles in Media Studies, Disability Studies, Craft of Creative Writing, German Studies, English Language Teaching, and Applied Linguistics. She is interested in projects that explore global German media and culture, new approaches to discourse of disability in the humanities, and the interrelationships and influences between media and identity. Specific to media studies, she is interested in scholarship on popular, contemporary, and youth media, especially against the backdrop of today’s political landscape.
Haley received her BA in Creative Writing & Literature from the University of Michigan and has been with the University of Michigan Press since 2018, where she's worked with multiple areas of the list. In addition to her work as an editor, she is a practicing artist, baker, and poet. She can be reached via email at haleywin@umich.edu.
Interested in learning more about submitting a manuscript for publication? Take a look at our information for prospective authors.
Peer Review Week Events
Want to learn more about peer review at a university press? Don’t miss the AUPresses workshop “AUPresses Hangout…Peer Review in the Age of Overload,” which takes place this Friday, September 18th, at 12:00 PM EDT. Haley Winkle will be a panelist, along with colleagues from University of Pennsylvania Press and Stanford University Press. Register here.
