Become a reviewer
Who can review for the Essex Student Journal?
All peer reviewers for the Essex Student Journal are current or former PGR students from the University of Essex.
If you are a current Essex PGR, please consider developing your skills and sharing your expertise by signing up today!
You don't need any prior peer review experience - we have online training and guidance for peer reviewing both academic writing and creative writing, and the friendly team are always happy to discuss any questions you have.
Remember, to be studying at PGR-level makes you an expert in your field - peer reviewing can be a great way to develop your well-earned confidence and gain valuable experience for your career!
Reminder: after you sign up, please add Review Interests to your user profile. These are the topics you feel comfortable reviewing and that we use to assign submissions to you for review. You can always adjust them later if you are getting too many/few assignments.
What to expect as a reviewer
We use a double-blind peer review process. This means that the author does not know the identities of their reviewers, and the reviewers don't know the identity of the author(s).
Once you have signed up and provided your Review Interests, we can start assigning reviews to you via our publishing system, Janeway. The number of reviews you are assigned will vary depending on how many interests you list and how many submissions we get related to those interests. We recognise that your time as a PGR is precious and so we aim to be as flexible as we can to ensure you have the time you need to complete a review. Please feel free to decline a review if you are too busy or contact the team to extend the deadline or for other support.
When you are assigned a review, you'll receive an email with information about it, the deadline to complete it, and a link to where you can accept/decline the assignment, download the file, and then upload your review.
Please accept/decline as soon as possible. There is no penalty for declining - we'll simply assign someone else. Letting us know ASAP helps keep the process moving.
If you need to adjust the deadline (either before or after accepting), we're happy to do so - simply get in touch and suggest a new date.
In addition to the peer review guidance above, you will receive a practical guide on how to conduct your review via the system. We ask that you complete your review by leaving comments/track changes in the word document. You can also give comments to the author and editor when you submit your final review. The author will not see the comments you leave for the editor. The editor will share your comments for the author once we have collected all the reviews.
If you have any questions at any stage, please get in touch and the team will help you.