---
name: phg-review-process
description: Use when anticipating how a Progress in Human Geography (PiHG) review essay will be judged — the double-anonymous review model, decision categories, and the desk-reject triggers specific to a review journal. Explains what to expect; it does not draft the manuscript or the response letter.
---

# Review Process (phg-review-process)

Understanding how PiHG judges a submission lets you pre-empt the objections a review essay draws. PiHG is
**double-anonymous**, and its reviewers are typically **senior figures in the sub-field** who know the
literature you are reviewing intimately. They ask a different question than an empirical journal's referees:
not "are the methods sound?" but "**does this command the field, and does it move it forward?**"

## When to trigger

- Before submission, to stress-test against likely reviewer objections
- Interpreting a decision letter's category and tone (then route to `phg-rebuttal`)
- Deciding whether a critique in review is fixable or fatal
- Calibrating how ambitious the intervention can be for this venue

## What PiHG reviewers weigh

| Criterion | The question | Where to fix pre-submission |
|-----------|--------------|-----------------------------|
| **Command of the literature** | Is coverage complete, current, fair, and correctly attributed? | `phg-literature-positioning` |
| **Synthesis** | Do the sources add up to one argument, or is this a list? | `phg-argument-synthesis` |
| **Critical intervention** | Does it say something the field does not already know? | `phg-critical-intervention` |
| **Conceptual clarity** | Is the organizing concept clear and load-bearing? | `phg-theory-building` |
| **Forward contribution** | Does it leave the field with a usable agenda? | `phg-contribution-framing` |
| **Fit & genre** | Is it a review, not an empirical study? Right length/style? | `phg-topic-selection`, `phg-writing-style` |

## Desk-reject triggers (review-journal-specific)

An editor can decline before review. The common triggers for a review essay:

- **An empirical study in disguise** — findings are the spine; PiHG does not publish empirical results.
- **A summary, not a synthesis** — an annotated bibliography with no argument.
- **No critical intervention** — comprehensive but toothless; nothing the field learns.
- **Parochial or dated coverage** — a partial, Global-North-only, or years-behind literature.
- **Out of scope / niche** — a settled or narrow topic with no live debate or disciplinary stakes.
- **An uncommissioned "Progress Report"** — that genre is invited, not open.
- **Over-length or wrong style** — well past the ~8,000-word inclusive cap; non-Harvard.

## Likely reviewer objections → the pre-emption

| Objection | The fix before submission |
|-----------|---------------------------|
| "This is a summary, not a synthesis." | Rebuild the spine around sub-claims (`phg-argument-synthesis`). |
| "The critique is fair but adds nothing." | Sharpen the intervention and its "changes practice" test (`phg-critical-intervention`). |
| "You missed literature X / misattributed Y." | Widen and correct the corpus; steelman the camps (`phg-literature-positioning`). |
| "Coverage is Anglophone/Global-North only." | Engage work beyond the centers; name the limit honestly. |
| "The framework is unclear." | Make the concept load-bearing; add a conceptual exhibit (`phg-theory-building`, `phg-tables-figures`). |
| "So what for the field?" | Deliver a specific forward agenda (`phg-contribution-framing`). |

## Decision categories (verify current wording on SAGE)

Typical outcomes: **reject** (often desk), **major revision**, **minor revision**, **accept** (rare on
first pass). A major revision is a **scoped invitation**, not a rejection — route to `phg-rebuttal`. As a
review journal, PiHG's revisions often ask you to **strengthen the argument or widen the corpus**, not to
run new analyses.

## Checklist

- [ ] Coverage complete, current, fair, correctly attributed (command test)
- [ ] Synthesis, not summary; one-sentence thesis holds
- [ ] A genuine critical intervention that changes practice
- [ ] Organizing concept clear and load-bearing
- [ ] Forward agenda specific and portable
- [ ] Genre, length, and style correct — no desk-reject triggers left

## Anti-patterns

- Treating PiHG referees as if they check methods rather than command of a field
- Submitting with a known coverage gap and hoping reviewers miss it (they wrote it)
- Reading a major revision as a rejection
- Assuming a review needs new data to answer reviewers — it usually needs a sharper argument

## Output format

```
【Likely outcome risk】desk-reject / major / minor — and why
【Weakest criterion】command / synthesis / intervention / clarity / contribution / fit
【Desk-reject triggers present?】empirical-in-disguise / summary / toothless / parochial / scope [list]
【Pre-emptions】the fixes to make before submitting
【Next】phg-submission (if fixing) or phg-rebuttal (if decision received)
```

## Supplementary resources

- [`../../resources/official-source-map.md`](../../resources/official-source-map.md) — review model and decision categories, with 待核实 markers
- [`../../resources/exemplars/library.md`](../../resources/exemplars/library.md) — the command-of-field and intervention bar to benchmark against