ABSTRACT
This chapter talks about June Davis', a biologist, revisions of her drafts to accommodate her reviewers, to the peer review correspondence between author and editor. It examines the interactions between Davis and her reviewers, as mediated by the editor, and suggests that from a rhetorical perspective, journal peer review can be analyzed as a generically structured argumentative discussion. The peer review, as it developed through the establishment of a referee system in the first scientific journal in 17th- and 18th-century Europe, has become, over time, a system for certifying new knowledge. The referee system has spread from the natural sciences to other knowledge-producing fields and can be seen as one indicator of disciplinary formation and professionalization. The peer review correspondence between the scientist, the journal editor, and the peer reviewers can be seen as taking place in three stages describing modifying van Eemeren and Grootendorst's schemas the opening stage, the argumentation stage, and the concluding negotiating stage.
