Re. peer review

[Geoff Hart <geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

     Dick DiMock wrote to note that his group, without a full-time editor,
     has tried to have authors review the work of their colleagues, but
     with little luck due to time constraints. Speaking in my editorial
     role, you really should try to get a good editor into your department.
     Some form of quality control is essential in publishing, and if you
     don't have time to do it yourself, you'll need a pro.

     Now given the real-world context of Dick's question (i.e., limited
     money and time), that idealistic suggestion probably won't fly. So
     here's what we do in my corner of the real world when I'm stretched
     thin or when we need expert advice: we send the text outside for
     review. In my situation, scientific publishing, the peer review
     involves a group supervisor who says "yeah, that's close enough to
     English to send to Geoff" and at least two outside reviewers who say
     "yeah, Geoff helped me to understand it, but here's what I disagree
     with".

     It's the last part that's important in Dick's situation, because this
     introduces the concept of "iterative review". Here, the approach is to
     write a single chapter and send it to a few of your real-world users
     (while you work feverishly on the next chapter). They look it over,
     point out what's wrong (there will be _lots_ of corrections), and send
     it back to you. You make the corrections, and ensure that you don't
     make the same mistakes in the next chapter. Here's the iterative part:
     send _that_ chapter out for review too, and you'll get a whole new
     batch of suggestions, but fewer than the first time. Repeat this
     process until the book is finished. Each subsequent chapter will be
     better than its predecessors.

     The process is called "iterative" because you keep repeating the
     review and improving each subsequent effort. At the same time, you get
     ongoing feedback from the audience who will actually use the product.
     This does two vital things: it ensures that you're in touch with the
     audience, and it flatters the audience by telling them that their
     opinion is important. This process isn't trivial nor is it easy: for
     example, how many reviewers do you need, what do you do if the product
     isn't available to the reviewers, and how do you handle the volume of
     replies? But each of these (and other problems) can be solved, and it
     gives you many of the benefits of having an editor. And you _will_
     produce a better final product as a result.

     You'll still need some form of edit for last-minute typos,
     consistency, corporate style, etc., but the most important part of the
     editing will be done by the audience who will benefit from it.

     --Geoff Hart    #8^{)}
     geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

     Disclaimer: If I didn't commit it in print in one of
     our reports, it don't represent FERIC's opinion.