Today I received a request to do a manuscript review. For an actual journal, not for a friend.
This has never happened before, and I am not sure why it has happened now. The topic of the article is within my broad field, but does not appear to be in my specialization, so I'm unsure why my name would have floated up as a reviewer. Further, I got the message at my newest email account, the one I have through my new employer. I've had this account all of six weeks or so, and not very many people have the address. Now, my graduate advisor is one of them, so it's possible he suggested me.
I'm trying to decide whether to agree to do the review. It will need to be done within the next couple of months. As I look ahead, I'm conscious of a number of important chores for September and October. I'm not sure how long this will take; it is only an article review, not a whole book, so it really seems as though I ought to be able to critique it in a day or two of work...?
It is still startling, though, to be viewed as a person appropriate to review someone else's work.
2 comments:
I got one of these a couple of years ago, but it actually was in my field. Yours is more puzzling. Chances are that your guess is correct: is Advisor on the editorial board of the journal?
My instinct would be to write back to whoever sent it to you, tell them you'd be happy to review the MS, but that you work on trees, while the article itself is in shrub studies. See what they say. MS reviewing can be time-consuming, but it also works for "professional development."
Shoot, you just reminded me of one I'm supposed to be doing! Yikes! Thanks for the tweak!
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