What Professor Harrow said is true. As an editor of a major journal, as one who sits on editorial boards, and as one who peer-reviews manuscripts, I can say that credentials are not important in the evaluation process. What you focus on is the sheer quality of the manuscripts. Besides, majority of the manuscripts one is often asked to review come double blind; so as a reviewer you know nothing about the writers and the authors do not know you. In fact, in processes where double blindness is not the gold standard, some scholars doubt if reviewers can be fair at all.
These days, most publishers of book manuscripts, including major university presses, only keep one side of the review process blind. The reviewer knows the author but the author does not know the reviewer. This has its own problems. Some reviewers could be very hard on known names in their fields; harder on known names, top scholars than on junior or unknown names. Some could be soft, really soft on known names.
To avoid these problems, sometimes I send some of my book manuscripts completely anonymized to publishers. Bias against known names in the review process is increasingly becoming a problem. Some reviewers want to cut certain names to size or pick unnecessary theoretical fights with some big names behind the veil of anonymity.
Even this kind of fights happens in the tenure and promotion review process. These days it is not uncommon for major US universities to ask those going for tenure, from assistant to associate professorship, for the names of certain reviewers who should not be allowed to reviews their publications. If the candidate can demonstrate that a particular reviewer, based on certain theoretical disagreements with his or her PhD supervisor, will block the promotions or never say anything positive about the former students of the candidate's doctoral father or mother, the university might eliminate that biased assessor from the potential list of reviewers. Please note that this is high standard to meet and universities rarely accept the arguments of tenure and promotion candidates on this issue. The fact that this potential concession exists goes to show the existence of undue bias against known names and what some US universities are doing to be fair to candidates seeking promotions. Professor Falola can speak on all these better than I can.
The bottom line: I am only nuancing the arguments of Harrow and Adepoju. Thanks.
Nimi Wariboko
Boston University.
On Jan 7, 2022, at 6:50 AM, Harrow, Kenneth <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:
toyinif we got a manuscript proposal, the first thing we would do would not be to look at credentials. the first thing is to see if the proposal looks interesting.credentials do not guarantee anything. i once had to eliminate chapter from a book i was editing on islam, and the chapter that went was by mazrui
ken
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
517 803-8839
harrow@msu.edu
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 5, 2022 3:46 AM
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Cc: Yoruba Affairs <yorubaaffairs@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Great Thanks to the Toyin Falola Network and to Toyin Falola for their Enablement of My Work as Sn Independent Scholar--What can I say?--
The Toyin Falola Network provides publishing opportunities for anyone, from any background, writing on anything.
You don't have an academic job?
No problem.
You have no PhD?
No problem.
You don't have a degree in the discipline in which you are writing or want to write?
No problem.
You don't have a track record of publishing in the field in question?
No problem.
All they are interested in is high quality, able to pass through the cleansing flames of critical assessment.
They are also able to request work from you if they think your orientation and standard suit what they want.
They are also able to make suggestions to you about book publication, by their own network or other publishers.
The network also runs the USAAfrica Dialogues Series Google group and the Yoruba Affairs Google group, a testing platform for ideas which is ready to publish all kinds of scholarship, litetature and thoughtful pieces.
This network has made a lot of my work possible.
Great thanks.
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAGBtzfNm7GfYtfGXeVBvFGMCZhtbw24sykYg3Rxts5TjTyrabw%40mail.gmail.com.
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/BL1PR12MB5191B1B729E1FBED405CADCDDA4B9%40BL1PR12MB5191.namprd12.prod.outlook.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment