Becoming a reviewer: Insights from the student and editorial boards of ESPJ Averil Coxhead a, * , Jordan Batchelor b , Onesmo Mushi c , Xixin Qiu d , Sunny Hyon e a School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand b Georgia State University, USA c University of Rochester, USA d Pennsylvania State University, USA e California State University, San Bernardino, USA article info Article history: Available online 3 July 2023 Keywords Journal review Student board Training Peer review abstract Reviewing is an important task in one’s academic career. Learning the skills and gaining practice are often overlooked activities in postgraduate education programmes. English for Specific Purposes instituted a Student Editorial Board (SEB) in 2022 and tasked two new Associate Editors to provide mentorship in reviewing over the course of a year. This paper focuses on the key questions which arose through mentoring meetings, such as the pro- cesses a paper goes through before it gets sent out for review and how to frame critical and supportive reviews. It also discusses the development of skills through membership in the SEB, drawing on reviews drafted individually over the year and one-on-one mentoring sessions, as well as feedback and group meetings with SEB members, Associate Editors and a very experienced board member. The paper ends with suggestions on how early career academics might become reviewers and ways to approach and respond to a paper as a reviewer. The paper demonstrates that offering SEB positions in journals is beneficial for postgraduate students, editors and the field overall. Ó 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction One English for Specific Purposes initiative in 2022 was to reinstitute a Student Editorial Board (SEB). The aims of the SEB include providing mentorship on peer review, which can be lacking in PhD programs, increasing the pool of reviewers for the journal in particular areas, and drawing on the considerable skills and talents of the next generation of scholars in ESP. A second initiative was to appoint Associate Editors who were tasked with SEB mentoring as part of their new roles. A call for applications on the journal website was made and three candidates were selected based on their prior experience and readiness to take up the role. The Associate Editors and the SEB began with a zoom meeting over several time zones to find out more about the research interests and expertise of the SEB members, set out goals and priorities for mentoring, ask and answer questions about reviewing, and develop a potential timeline for the coming year. We agreed to meet as a group every * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: Averil.coxhead@vuw.ac.nz (A. Coxhead), jbatchelor2@gsu.edu (J. Batchelor), omushi@u.rochester.edu (O. Mushi), xjq5016@psu.edu (X. Qiu), SHyon@csusb.edu (S. Hyon). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect English for Specific Purposes journal homepage: http://ees.elsevier.com/esp/default.asp https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2023.06.003 0889-4906/Ó 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. English for Specific Purposes 72 (2023) 20–25