Writing a Helpful Referee’s Report 1 BRIAN MARTIN Referees’ reports are often demoralizing to authors. It is possible to write a report that is supportive and helpful by following two rules: Say what is good about a piece of work, and say how it can be improved. Recently I received a referee’s report on an article. It started off as follows: ‘On the bottom of page 1, the manuscript says that the method of taking action [...] is not specified; it is unclear what the author means here.’ It continued for fourteen paragraphs, each filled with criticisms. In my career, I’ve received hundreds of reports from referees, and their most predictable feature is criticism, sometimes relentless and merciless. Some reports start with a sentence or two saying what’s nice and then proceed with the bloodletting. Such reports can be damaging to morale. I know senior scholars who rarely or never submit articles to refereed journals because of the fierce criticism they’ve received. I know others who, having submitted excellent papers, were so daunted by the resulting criticism that they did not pursue the editor’s advice to ‘revise and resubmit,’ either giving up or submitting elsewhere. If experienced researchers can be so affected by biting criticisms, imagine what it’s like for someone beginning a research career. I suspect that many talented individuals have been lost to research because of damaging reports from referees. There is a lot of psychological research showing that most people think they are better than average in all sorts of areas, from driving to social skills to teaching, so undoubtedly most authors overrate their work. This helps explain why critical reports can be such a shock. As well as being damaging to morale, negative reports are usually unhelpful: They do not explain well what the author needs to do to improve the article. ‘The literature review is incomplete’; ‘The central thesis of the paper is confusing’; ‘The methodology has gaps.’ Journal of Scholarly Publishing April 2008 doi: 10.3138/jsp.39.3.301