Why & How to Be a Journal Reviewer: Plus Announcement of the AJE Excellence in Reviewing Awards!

Abstract Information: Providing professional service as a reviewer for a peer-reviewed journal is both important and rewarding. That said, scholarly journals worldwide are facing challenges in securing quality, timely reviews. In this session, Dr. Laura Peck, Co-Editor of the American Journal of Evaluation, and Dr. Shannon Hitchcock, Managing Editor for AJE, will discuss both why and how to be a reviewer. This session targets especially graduate students and early-career professionals, but it may be of relevance to those at any career stage.

Relevance Statement: The quality and timeliness of anonymized reviews for peer-reviewed journals is essential to journals’ quality and ability to advance scholarship and evaluation practice. People are rarely taught how to do such reviews. In response, this skill building session will education especially early-career scholars and practitioners on how to complete a review that is useful to informing editorial decisions about submitted manuscripts. Because of the importance of this role, the American Journal of Evaluation is also pleased to be able to recognize three individuals whose reviews are models of excellence.