E04 – Peer Review: Getting Started or Upping Your Game

Summary

This lively, interactive workshop will invite participants to look “behind the curtain” to understand and participate in the editorial process of CFHA’s journal, Families, Systems, & Health. We discuss the why and how of peer reviewing manuscripts to inspire and strengthen participation in this critical scientific process. In keeping with this year’s conference theme, we incorporate discussion of ethical issues in peer review, including various forms of bias and strategies for overcoming or mitigating them. Our goals are to diversify our team of peer reviewers and equip people with a broad range of experiences and perspectives to meaningfully contribute to shaping what is disseminated as “scientific knowledge”. This workshop is designed for novice and experienced reviewers alike. Participants will reflect on their motivations for reviewing (for a particular journal and/or manuscript), and how to decide if they are ready to review and/or become more ready to review . They will consider approaches and strategies for reviewing, and develop tools for communicating in challenging scenarios, such as: a) when they didn’t review a prior version of the manuscript, b) when there are ethical concerns, and c) when some aspects of the article may be beyond their expertise. They will glimpse what happens after peer reviewers submit their reviews and gain an understanding of how editors use reviewers’ feedback. These finer points will help to comprehend qualities of an excellent peer review. Finally, we will discuss how to extrapolate these learnings to peer reviewing other forms of scientific dissemination such as conference abstracts. The presenters all have experiencing reviewing for CFHA’s annual conference, as well as other conferences.