DHQ: Digital Humanities Quarterly

Submission Guidelines | Style Guidelines | Citation Guidelines | Terms of Publication | Author Support
CFPs | Special Issues | Peer Reviewing for DHQ | Book and Tool Reviews | Acceptance Rates and Indexing

Peer Reviewing for DHQ

>> Print Guidelines

DHQ peer reviewers serve a crucial role for the journal, and we are always happy to have more of them. Peer reviewers perform two important tasks: first, to ensure that the materials accepted for publication are of the highest quality, and second, to provide feedback that will guide the authors as they revise their articles. Peer reviewers thus act as the first audience for a submitted article and help the author to gauge whether the argument is clear, interesting, and well-crafted. In order to ensure an efficient review and publication process, reviewers are asked to complete their reviews within a few weeks, but are free to turn down a review assignment if they are unable to meet this deadline. The review form requests both a detailed evaluation of the submitted material and concrete suggestions for improving it.

This review process is intended to serve two central goals. First, the review helps us determine whether a submission is appropriate for publication in DHQ. To be appropriate for publication, a submission must fulfill the following criteria:

  • It must fall within the content domain of the journal (very broadly, digital humanities and related fields).
  • It must be addressed to an appropriate audience. The audience of DHQ is of course the digital humanities community, but it also extends more broadly to related domains and to the interested non-specialist: for instance, humanities faculty, digital artists, museum curators, archivists, and the like. DHQ articles should be clear without being elementary; they should not rely on insider knowledge, and they should situate their argument within a broader context of research.
  • It must have an argument, and it should represent an original contribution to the research and practice of the digital humanities field, or should offer an original analysis, critique, or viewpoint on some aspect thereof.
  • It must be well written, and must present its argument clearly and interestingly. (However, we can help the author improve the writing and argumentation, so a lack in this area is not necessarily a disqualification.)

Second, the review provides feedback to the author to assist them in improving the submission. Our assumption is that almost all submissions will benefit from some revision, and the goal of this review process is to help the author as much as possible with detailed, constructive criticism. Most of the review comments should be focused on how to improve the submission. Even if the paper is deemed not suitable for publication, the review should provide some feedback describing to the author where it goes wrong, so that they have a chance at improving should they choose to submit again. Our goal is to cultivate a thriving community and improve the overall quality of writing. Our peer review process conforms to DHQ's code of ethics.

DHQ's peer review is blind but not double-blind. The primary goal of the review process is to assist authors in improving their submissions, and to play an advisory role, rather than act as a gatekeeper. As a result, concealing the author's identity from reviewers is not as essential for DHQ as it is in other domains. We permit authors to anonymize their submissions if they choose. But given the nature of the DH community, it would be difficult to completely anonymize all submissions sufficiently for a truly double-blind peer review. If authors decide to include personally identifying information in their submission, we ask our reviewers to provide feedback that is candid about the reasons for the review assessment. In cases of a genuine conflict of interest that makes constructive review impossible, reviewers should notify DHQ and decline the review request. Please contact the editors if you have questions or concerns.

To sign up as a reviewer, please follow the instructions for registering via Open Journal System.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR REGISTERING AS A REVIEWER:

  1. Go to https://openjournals.library.northeastern.edu/dhq/home/user/register.
  2. Register your account by completing the required fields.
  3. Please be sure when you register that you compete check the "Reviewer" box at the end of the form and include your areas of interest for future reviews.
  4. When you click "Register" at the end of the form, you will be taken back to the home page.