Mapping Out the Peer Review Genre as Reflected in Multilingual Journal Requirements

Set against the background of research into peer reviewing as an essential component in theresearch publishing process, this study goes beyond the realm of Anglophone publishingand brings in the multilingual dimension. A corpus of review forms and other relevantdocuments and information sources derived from five multilingual journals has beencompiled and analysed in order to explore how journal requirements and editor guidelinesand expectations contribute to mapping out peer reviewing as a genre. This analysis hasrevealed both commonality of approach in key areas, reflecting internationalstandardization tendencies, and slight differences, especially at the level of detail, reflectingdynamism in the evolution of this "occluded genre". The final part includes examples ofmultilingualism in action in this scholarly domain and discusses some of the implicationsfor reviewers.