The Reviewer’s Experience in Face of the Open Science Practice in Bakhtiniana

Belonging to the SciELO network, a prestigious indexer, is one of the main quality commitments of Bakhtinina. Revista de Estudos do Discurso [Bakhtiniana. Journal of Discourse Studies]. For this reason, on constantly striving to achieve the required level of excellence, we must always be aware of the changing criteria for permanence in the collection. Besides publishing issues, SciELO network also entails other possibilities for popularizing scientific production by the good practice of divulgating scientific production through the BlogSciElo in Perspective / Humanities.

This year, Bakhtiniana was invited, for the second time since its foundation, to participate in a week to publicize our journal. This activity took place last May 2023. Between 8 and 12, May, six posts were published, which gave the opportunity for the reader to get to know not only a little more about the journal but also, and especially, about the new procedures adopted in terms of Open Science: (1) Bakhtiniana conversa com leitores e reforça sua identidade por meio de Editoriais, acompanhado de um vídeo das editoras [Bakhtiniana Talks with Readers and Reinforces its Identity through Editorials], accompanied by a video of the editoresses, on May 08, 2023 (Pistori, 2023); (2) Para a teoria bakhtiniana corpus e objeto são correlatos mas diferentes [For the Bakhtinian Theory Corpus and Object are Correlated but Distinct], on May 09, 2023 (Rosa, 2023); (3) Diálogo é fundamental para lidar com desafios e resultados da Editoria ad hoc [Dialogue is Essential to Deal with the Challenges and Results of the Ad Hoc Editorship], on May 09, 2023 (Del Ré; Orvig, 2023); (4) Bakhtiniana busca visibilidade internacional com Editoria de Língua Estrangeira [Bakhtiniana Seeks International Visibility with the Foreign Language Editorship], on May 10, 2023 (Pistori; Stella, 2023); (5) A experiência do autor na prática da ciência aberta [The Author’s Experience in the Practice of Open Science], on May 11, 2023 (Rosa, 2023); (6) Diálogos com o leitor ativo e responsivo da Bakhtiniana por meio das redes sociais [Dialogues with the Active and Responsive Reader of Bakhtiniana through Social Networks], on May 12, 2023 (Lopes-Dugnani; Pistori, 2023).

The posts, signed by authors, ad hoc editors, and members of the journal’s Editorial board, reached a large audience, which brought us great satisfaction. However, we felt the necessity of closing a gap left open from the beginning of this task. The gap relates to the production of a text that would provide readers with the reviewer’s point of view as regarding the commitments related to open science. In other words, in open science, there is transparency in the reviewing process involving reviewers and authors. We published the experience of authors who interacted with reviewers, but what lacked was the question of how this experience was seen by reviewers, who might have their opinions and names published along with the article reviewed.

Some of our readers, who are also academic journal editors, know how arduous a task it may be to find reviewers for submitted articles. There are excellent reviewers in our area, though, and we fully depend on them to maintain the quality of the journal. For this reason, we are immensely grateful to them (cf. Brait et al, 2020).¹

This interview with Prof. Dr. Bruno Rêgo Deusdará Rodrigues, professor at Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro [State University of Rio de Janeiro] and also Bolsista de Produtividade do CNPq - Nível 2 [Productivity Research Scholar - Level 2 at CNPq] will try to close that gap. In addition to being an all-time reviewer of articles for the journal, Bruno Deusdará has already published in Bakhtiniana (Josiowicz; Deusdará, 2022)² so, we may say that he is reasonably acquainted with the journal. For this interview, we focused on his reviewing experience on the text “Scenography, Setting and Ethical World in Jogo de Cena [Scene Game]: A Discursive Approach” by Silma Ramos Coimbra Mendes and Maria Cecília Pérez de Souza-e-Silva, published Bakhtiniana. Revista de Estudos do Discurso [Bakhtiniana. Journal of Discourse Studies], v. 17, no. 3 of Sep-Jul, 2022.³

1) You have been reviewing articles for scientific journals for some time now. Have you noticed any differences in the Open Science system comparing to the double-blind peer review in your practice as a reviewer?

This question is very intriguing because it requires that I take draw back to my past experiences. In fact, I have already reviewed articles for journals with distinct publishing profiles. I have reviewed articles both for journals that intend to disseminate works by established researchers, and for those ones that aim to stimulate the production of supervisees and researchers in training by popularizing it. This “backstage” work of reviewing, although very little visible (in general, it is not recognized as a work activity in the calculation of our weekly workload), excites me a lot. We have the chance to follow the readings that are being done by the diverse research groups, to identify paths and impasses that are undertaken in the analyses. It is, let’s say, the chance to access a work under construction.

Traditionally, in this context of article review, feedbacks, criticisms, suggestions or interventions are prepared anonymously. I can’t help but think that this anonymity is supposed to bring about a certain neutrality to the review. I suppose that the lack of knowledge of the figure of the author is intended to allow me, as a reviewer, to make a supposedly “freer” assessment. Likewise, it makes it seem that the author has received an anonymous opinion, staging the presence of a disembodied researcher-enunciator, almost an illusory universal voice, emanating from an “impartial scientific community.”

The point of view that I assume here when using so many modalizers and inverted commas shows that I personally take a distance from this perspective. I would say that one’s thought can be signed in different ways, either by the references one selects, by the type of phenomenon one chooses to analyze, or even by the way one engages in the analysis.

We may not even know who the individual who wrote the text is, but we do not fail to recognize the various signatures that mark one’s way of building knowledge. We evaluate the effects of those trajectories, the combinations constructed, and the forms of articulation those parts.

From my point of view, recognizing names of authors, and also being able to put our names in reviews, supports at least two types of achievement. The first one resides in dismantling this paraphernalia present in our daily practices, which still suggests the existence of a disembodied thought, an illusory universality, and a supposed scientific impartiality. The second one points to the construction of an interesting ethical action: on getting to know the names of authors and placing our names next to them we are establishing a dynamic of recognition. This recognition is not “noise” in the interaction, but a chance to cultivate solidarity among researchers who not only recognize the responsibility of scientific work, but also assume their difficulties, challenges, and share them. This is what I want to think of as an ethics of solidarity, capable of resisting the neoliberal effects of predatory competition that try to invade academic environments.

2) Specifically, in the case of the article you reviewed in 2022, you produced two reviews: a first one with mandatory corrections, and a second one approving the article. Tell us more about your recollections of this process - what was it like dialoguing with authors, and receiving the text signed in the second round; what was it like reading a text for the second time as a reviewer; or anything else that comes to mind.

This is an excellent opportunity to remember this recent exercise of reviewing an article for Bakhtiniana. Revista de Estudos do Discurso [Bakhtiniana. Journal of Discourse Studies] in the context of Open Science. From the beginning of the reading, the theoretical references, supported by an articulation between D. Maingueneau’s discursive perspective and cinema studies, pointed to a certain signature of thought. I could even imagine that I would know the authoresses of the text. There was also a reference to a text Décio [Rocha] and I had written in 2005. At the same time, I was enchanted by the articulation taking shape between notions of scenography and ethical world launched in a creative and innovative provocation - another clue to the inscription of the authoresses in the community of current readers of a discursive orientation.

In this process, I put myself in the shoes of a very interested reader. Simultaneously, I realized that reading the article required knowledge constituted in another field: that of film studies. I recognized in it references with which I had already had contact in previous moments. Those elements showed the dips and leaps of the authoresses in the field with which they were establishing dialogue. In view of this, I started building hypotheses about some clues and marks that could be left in the text that might allow the access of an initiated reader who, conversely, might not be fully aware either of the aforementioned studies on cinema and on the most current references in the field of discourse.

My observations in preparing the review of that article were based on this reader profile, who seeks journals such as Bakhtiniana to produce references to their own dips and leaps. In my opinion, such observations would make the text more accessible to a wider audience, including supervisee students, interested in the innovations and proposed articulations. When I received the signed text, I was very happy to have been able to participate in this process. I am certain that our supervisees and researchers in training, along with our colleagues in the field, will be able to benefit from reading the current and audacious proposal built there.

3) In Bakhtiniana, only reviews of articles accepted for publication are published with the endorsement of the author and of the reviewer, who still has the option of publish reviews anonymously. What criteria as a reviewer do you take into consideration among the ones available when evaluating an article (publish the review with authorship, anonymously, or not publish it at all)?

From my point of view, the review of an article must express, above all, our recognition that a work of elaboration supports the text that we read and evaluate. This is an ethical guideline that makes us go through the text in a way that seeks to restore this effort undertaken. And I say this both in cases where the text is read with more interest, admiration, enthusiasm - this is exactly the case of the review produced enhancing dialogue - and in circumstances in which specific or even structural disagreements prevail over the effects obtained in its construction. I can always respect the effort and seek dialogue in order to expose the movements of readings oriented to the approval or not of the results obtained. This respectful dialogue makes me choose to endorse the publication of the signed reviews I produce.

4) In Bakhtiniana, you have participated as a reviewer in an open reviewed text. As an author, have you ever gone through this process?

Not yet. I am anxious to undergo this experience and, especially, for this set of practices to become a habit in our scientific community.

5) What advice would you as an “I-reviewer” give to authors who intend to publish in Bakhtiniana?

I consider that Bakhtiniana. Revista de Estudo do Discurso [Bakhtiniana. Journal of Discourse Studies] takes an outstanding dialogical position in our scientific community which still organizes itself under vast categories. This is because our scientific area currently has a significant number of qualified journals that publish on a regular basis. However, most of them are organized under the vast categories of Letters or Linguistics.

Taking into consideration that there are many ways to update reflections in the field of language studies, Bakhtiniana assumes a special position, as it permits to come into play, by means of a well-qualified philosophical bias guided by highly standardized critique, notions such as text, discourse, authorship, among others. It is always an interesting exercise of taking holding of the critical universe and making it move on by means of well-sustained expositions and, at the same time, well-referenced material in relation to other fields of knowledge. Similarly, the detailed exposition of the forms and strategies of approximation to the linguistic-discursive materiality to be investigated is also a relevant dealing of the journal in the search for the expansion of the forms of dissemination and popularization of science.

REFERÊNCIAS

• BRAIT, B.; PISTORI, M. H. C.; LOPES-DUGNANI, B.; PHILIPPOV, R. Nossos pareceristas: os bastidores da produção científica. Bakhtiniana. Revista de Estudos do Discurso, v. 15, n. 4, port.2-7 / Eng.2-7, 2020. Recuperado de https://revistas.pucsp.br/index.php/bakhtiniana/article/view/50948
  » https://revistas.pucsp.br/index.php/bakhtiniana/article/view/50948
• DEL RÉ, A.; ORVIG, A.S. Diálogo é fundamental para lidar com desafios e resultados de editorias ad hoc [online]. SciELO em Perspectiva: Humanas, 9 de maio de 2023. Disponível em: https://humanas.blog.scielo.org/blog/2023/05/09/dialogo-e-fundamental-para-lidar-com-desafios-e-resultados-de-editorias-ad-hoc/. Acesso em: 20 jun. 2023.
  » https://humanas.blog.scielo.org/blog/2023/05/09/dialogo-e-fundamental-para-lidar-com-desafios-e-resultados-de-editorias-ad-hoc
• JOSIOWICZ, A.; DEUSDARÁ, B. Análise tecnodiscursiva de manifestações em torno de D. Maradona: metodologias de delimitação de regiões do dizer no Twitter. Bakhtiniana. Revista de Estudos do Discurso, v. 17, n. 3, port.156-181 / Eng.172-198, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1590/2176-4573p57464
  » https://doi.org/10.1590/2176-4573p57464
• LOPES-DUGNANI, B.; PISTORI, M.H.C. Diálogos com o leitor ativo e responsivo da Bakhtiniana por meio das redes sociais [online]. SciELO em Perspectiva: Humanas, 12 de maio de 2023. Disponível em: https://humanas.blog.scielo.org/blog/2023/05/12/dialogos-com-o-leitor-ativo-e-responsivo-da-bakhtiniana-por-meio-das-redes-sociais/. Acesso em: 20 jun. 2023.
  » https://humanas.blog.scielo.org/blog/2023/05/12/dialogos-com-o-leitor-ativo-e-responsivo-da-bakhtiniana-por-meio-das-redes-sociais
• MENDES, S. R. C.; SOUZA-E-SILVA, M. C. P. Cenografia, agenciamento e mundo ético na entrevista em Jogo de cena: uma abordagem discursiva. Bakhtiniana. Revista de Estudos do Discurso, v. 17, n. 3, port.83-104 / Eng.93-116, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1590/2176-4573p54994
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• PISTORI, M. H. C. Bakhtiniana conversa com leitores e reforça sua identidade por meio de editoriais [online]. SciELO em Perspectiva: Humanas, 8 de maio de 2023. Disponível em: https://humanas.blog.scielo.org/blog/2023/05/08/bakhtiniana-conversa-com-leitores-e-constroi-sua-identidade-por-meio-de-editoriais/. Acesso em: 20 jun. 2023.
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• PISTORI, M. H. C.; STELLA, P. R. Bakhtiniana busca visibilidade internacional com editoria em língua estrangeira [online]. SciELO em Perspectiva: Humanas, 10 de maio de 2023. Disponível em: https://humanas.blog.scielo.org/blog/2023/05/10/bakhtiniana-busca-visibilidade-internacional-com-editoria-em-lingua-estrangeira/. Acesso em: 20 jun. 2023.
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• ROSA, C. G. Para a teoria bakhtiniana, corpus e objeto são correlatos, mas diferentes [online]. SciELO em Perspectiva: Humanas, 9 de maio de 2023. Disponível em: https://humanas.blog.scielo.org/blog/2023/05/09/para-a-teoria-bakhtiniana-corpus-e-objeto-sao-correlatos-mas-diferentes/. Acesso em: 20 jun. 2023.
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• ROSA, C. G. A experiência do autor na prática da Ciência Aberta na Bakhtiniana [online]. SciELO em Perspectiva: Humanas, 11 de maio de 2023. Disponível em: https://humanas.blog.scielo.org/blog/2023/05/11/a-experiencia-do-autor-na-pratica-da-ciencia-aberta-na-bakhtiniana/. Acesso em: 20 jun. 2023.
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• 1
  BRAIT, B.; PISTORI, M. H. C.; LOPES-DUGNANI, B.; PHILIPPOV, R. Our Peer-Reviewers: Backstage of Scientific Production.Bakhtiniana. Revista de Estudos do Discurso, v. 15, n. 4, Eng.2-7, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1590/2176-457335352. Available at: https://revistas.pucsp.br/index.php/bakhtiniana/article/view/50948/33364. Access on June 22, 2023.
• 2
  JOSIOWICZ, A.; DEUSDARÁ, B. A Techno-Discursive Analysis of Manifestations Surrounding Diego Maradona’s Death: Methodologies for Delimiting Discursive Regions on Twitter.Bakhtiniana. Revista de Estudos do Discurso, v. 17, n. 3, Eng. 172-198, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/2176-4573e5746. Available at https://revistas.pucsp.br/index.php/bakhtiniana/article/view/57464/40253. Access on June 22, 2023.
• 3
  MENDES, S. R. C.; SOUZA E SILVA, M. C. P. Scenography, Setting and Ethical World in Jogo de Cena [Scene Game]: A Discursive Approach. Bakhtiniana. Revista de Estudos do Discurso, v. 17, n. 3, Eng. 93, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1590/2176-4573p54994. Available at: https://revistas.pucsp.br/index.php/bakhtiniana/article/view/54994/40247. Access on June 25, 2023.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  18 Sept 2023
• Date of issue
  Jul-Sep 2023

History

• Received
  20 June 2023
• Accepted
  18 July 2023