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Reviewer Guidance

Thank you for taking part in the peer review process for the 2024 release of Quest: Queens University Undergraduate Research Journal. Our mission is to be an accessible, inclusive, and prestigious outlet for students to build their scholarly identities, gain experience publishing their work, and participate in the creation of knowledge in their discipline. We seek to do so through a peer review process oriented not only on strengthening a student’s submission but also on identifying ways to help them become a more confident and experienced scholar.

To this end, we first request that you use these guidelines for anti-racist review practices as you work through your assigned article: heuristic guidelines for anti-racist scholarly review practices.

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Further review guidelines to consider are if the submission: 

  • Creates knowledge through original or synthesized ideas.  

  • Furthers the research in the related field.  

  • Understandable to a broad audience from experts to undergraduate students 

  • Contains a methodology as appropriate to their discipline. 

  • Uses data in an understandable and ethical manner. 

  • Have all claims supported through evidence and explanation. 

  • Inclusive and respectful through language and content. 

As these artifacts were written by undergraduates, we hope that you will consider giving your feedback in a way that encourages engagement with revision and the iterative process of writing. One way to accomplish this goal is to provide a Letter to the Writer with the following information:

 

  • Impressions or comments from a global perspective to help students understand the revisions from a holistic perspective. 

  • Explicit directions for areas in the text that you feel need considerable revision. The more detailed you can be – even to the point of modeling – can help the undergraduate writer become familiar with the conventions of your discipline’s discourse. 

  • Point out areas of text that are well composed so that the undergraduate writer has examples of where they are doing strong work.  

Finally, we hope that you will include a text that offers effective marginal comments that invite the undergraduate into the revision process as they see how you experienced the text as you read it.  

Thank you again for your participation in this incredibly important process. If you have any questions, please reach out to Avery Marquis, Assistant Editor in Chief (marquisa@queens.edu), or Grem McIntosh, Submissions Editor (mcintoshg@queens.edu). 

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