Editor’s Column 70 WWW.HERDJOURNAL.COM ISSN:฀1937-5867 A t the recent Healthcare De- sign ‘08 conference, one of the attendees asked me, “What does it mean that HERD is peer reviewed?” I gave him my usual answer: peer review is the process of sending a submitted manuscript stripped of author identifiers to a panel of three reviewers expert in the focus area of the manuscript. After careful review, they offer their opin- ions to the editors about the accuracy of the con- tent, the appropriateness of the research design and methods if the article is a research paper, or the quality of the content and writing if the ar- ticle is an opinion or theory paper. The author does not know who the reviewers are, and the reviewers do not know who the author is. After explaining the process, I was aware that I still had not answered the “So what?” question to his satisfaction, and I realized that while peer review is a common term among academics, it may not be for practitioners in design, nursing, medicine, or other fields related to healthcare design. So what is a peer-reviewed journal, and why does it matter? Scientific Writing, Peer Review, and Turning Lemons Into Lemonade Jaynelle F. Stichler, DNSc, RN, FACHE, FAAN A peer-reviewed (or refereed) jour- nal is a scholarly publication that requires that each article submitted be critically appraised by an inde- pendent panel of subject experts who are peers of the author (in the same discipline). Articles not ap- proved by a majority of these experts are not accepted for publication in the journal. If the review panel recommends revisions, the editors review and consider their recommendations. If the editor agrees with the reviewers’ comments and recommendations, they are forwarded to the author (absent identifying information about the reviewers) with a request to make any needed changes before the manuscript can be accepted for publication. This process is the same for all scholarly journals (Cline Library; University of Illinois, 2004). Not all articles in a peer-reviewed journal are subject to the peer review process. In HERD, such things as letters to the editors, book reviews, and editorial columns are not peer reviewed, al- though both coeditors and the managing editor Jaynelle F. Stichler, DNSc, RN, FACHE, FAAN