Sunday 4 November 2012

On Peer Reviewing

I have been more than a little preoccupied with understanding the use of interviews this term, so for the peer review assignment I've chosen the article on emergencies ("Bridging and Bonding in Emergency Management Networks"), which used interviews, in the hopes that it will help me refine my understanding of how and why to use them as a research method. I really like what Luker wrote in her chapter on interviews, about how while interviews don't allow you to capture some sort of objective snapshot of "reality," they do give you insight into what is going on in people's heads, they ways in which they understand things, and how the world looks from their perspective (pg. 167). It is this insight that I have taken with me into the peer-review process - as I try to evaluate the article on emergency management networks, I've been thinking a lot about how interviews helped (or didn't help?) the author to learn what he wanted to learn.

The peer review process has been challenging for me so far. Like others have mentioned, it's been difficult to be aware of when I am giving feedback in the hopes of making the article better for the author, based on his own intentions, and when my feedback veers toward trying to make the article something I would have written myself. I really like the suggestion Michelle made a few posts below - I would have found it helpful to walk-though a peer review (of an article different from the ones assigned) as a group. As it was, though, the workshop was helpful, and I left feeling a little more at ease about completing the assignment.

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