The Academic Peer Review Process in a Nutshell

The peer review process is an integral part of academics.  Professors are told to “publish or perish” and they must do so in highly regarded peer review journals to demonstrate the importance of their work.  In order to get published in one of these prestigious journals they must make their way through a grueling gauntlet called the peer review process that looks something like this:

1. Read through a complicated set of instructions for authors and conform to unique and obscure formatting requirements that resemble the awful “Turabian” guidelines that keep hundreds of thousands of students from completing their thesis on time each year.  [I wonder what the cost of Turabian is to annual GDP?]

2. Submit your article in the proper format to the journal editor.  At this point you can add the article to your CV but you have to say “submitted” as part of the citation.

3. Wait several months for a reply.