User talk:Anachronist/Reliable sources (university presses)

@Anachronist: Thanks for this, some really good points. I agree with most of it and I'd support putting it back in mainspace.

Regarding the comparison of press peer review to journal peer review, I don't think this is quite accurate:

With a scholarly journal, peer reviewers and authors don't know one another's identities. This bidirectional anonymity typically doesn't exist during a book's peer-review; the reviewers often know the identity of the author, which can result in a favorable bias toward a reviewer's fellow colleague.

The first line describes double blind peer review which is one model used by journals but by no means universal. I don't know the statistics but I've certainly done my share of single blind reviews (where I know the author's name but they don't) and open peer review is increasingly common.

In general, I wonder how much of what's in the peer review section are specific to books, as opposed to just being weaknesses with scholarly peer review as a whole – IMO Wikipedians put entirely too much faith in it, but that's another discussion. – Joe (talk) 16:07, 17 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. The point I was trying to make with this may be a bit muddy. A journal generally has peer reviewers from all over the place, whereas a university press draws its reviewers from its smaller network of universities. So if I submit a journal article for single-blind review, the peer reviewer may see my name, but would be extremely unlikely to know who I am. If I submit a book to a university press, the reviewer not only would see my name, but may be familiar with my work, or even know me personally — especially if the university press uses reviewers recommended by the author of the book being reviewed.

Can you suggest a way to revise it? ~Anachronist (talk) 18:56, 17 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Probably this varies from field to field, but if I'm asked to review something, it's extremely unlikely that I won't know who they are. I don't think that takes away from your point, but I'd perhaps phrase it as weaknesses of peer review (Scholarly peer review#Criticism is surely long enough that it could be its own article by now) rather than . On the other hand, the point you make about reviewers only reading part of the work is specific to books. I can make some edits directly, if you don't mind? – Joe (talk) 08:26, 18 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No, I don't mind at all. I never considered myself the "owner" of this, and when I first wrote it, some other editors who had advised me, I invited to contribute, but they didn't. One of those editors told me about his experience with a university press using peer reviewers recommended by the author, so I put it in. ~Anachronist (talk) 01:30, 19 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]