How to Be a More Effective Reviewer

Abstract

Monthly Weather Review needs over a thousand peer reviews each year to maintain the high quality of articles that our readership have come to expect.We value our volunteer reviewers and recognize their investment that keeps our journal operating.As a result of their experience, professionalism, and generosity, the majority of these thousand reviews are thoughtful, thorough, and constructive.I hear about the negativity in peer review in journals from other disciplines, and I am thankful that we rarely see such serious issues in Monthly Weather Review.We desire to maintain this character and quality of our reviews in this 150th year of publication, and so let us reflect on the process of being a reviewer.As a starting point, the American Meteorological Society (AMS) provides a list of obligations for reviewers to follow, and we encourage all reviewers and authors to read this list (AMS 2022a).AMS also offers some instructions and basic guidance for reviewers on their website (AMS 2022b) and in their reviewer-invitation letters.Other resources exist across many books and journals from different disciplines to help reviewers to understand the review process and write their reviews (e.g., chapter 20 in Schultz 2009; Lovejoy et al. 2011;Drotar et al. 2013;Caligiuri and Thomas 2013;Berk et al. 2017;Stiller-Reeve 2018;Warner 2019), and some publishers even have their own reviewer training and accreditation (e.g., Institute of Physics and Springer Nature).In this editorial, Monthly Weather Review asks each of us to rededicate ourselves to insightful, constructive, and supportive peer review, both to maintain the quality of published articles and to make all of us more effective reviewers.Below, we provide guidance to potential reviewers on the peer-review process and how to contribute most effectively to it.The remainder of this editorial has four sections: receiving the invitation, writing the review, after the initial review, and communicating with the editor. Receiving the invitationThere are a few things to consider when first receiving the invitation to perform the review.We list them here:• Respond as quickly as is feasible.Monthly Weather Review prides itself on being a leader among AMS journals in the shortest time for authors to receive an initial decision.The sooner that we know whether you can accept the invitation, the speedier the process is.Letting the editor know as soon as possible is especially important if you plan to decline the review, so that editors can identify other potential reviewers sooner.It is better to let an editor know immediately that you are interested but require more time to decide than to sit on an invitation in the hopes of buying time.• Each manuscript (defined here as a paper submitted for peer review but not yet accepted or typeset) typically requires two or three peer reviewers.Thus, the Golden Rule of Reviewing is to review double or triple the number of manuscripts that you submit per year.• We all have too much to do, and Monthly Weather Review values the volunteer contributions that reviewers make.If you would like to do the review, but need more time than the typical 4 weeks, please ask the editor if an extension is possible.Even if you accept the review and then something comes up later, please e-mail the editor and ask for an extension.In most cases, an extension of a week or two is not a problem and is something the editor can easily accommodate.• Invitations to review should be treated confidentially.If you are invited to perform a review but cannot do it, please provide any recommendations for other potential reviewers to the editor rather than contacting those individuals directly.If you want to jointly write a review with your student as a learning experience for them, then that is great.Just ask the editor first.In most cases, this is not a problem.However, we do like to maintain the confidentiality of the peer-review process and know who has awareness of and access to the manuscript (Schultz 2019).

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