The American Ornithological Society (AOS) journals are at the top of their field with Ornithological Applications (Impact Factor: 3.04) ranked 1st and Ornithology (Impact Factor: 2.55) ranked 3rd in the “Ornithology” category, according to the Journal Citation Reports™ from Clarivate 2022. Reviewers are vital to the production of the American Ornithological Society’s (AOS’s) high-quality journals. “Reviewing is a way to contribute to the communication of scientific knowledge and to improve one’s own skills as a scientist,” Catherine Lindell, Editor-in-Chief of Ornithological Applications explains, adding, “We couldn’t publish our journals without the expertise of our reviewers.” If you are interested in helping AOS increase its reviewer pool, please consider the following ways to contribute.
Become a Reviewer
Reviewing papers provides an outstanding opportunity for early-career researchers to practice skills needed for writing their own papers, while working with some of the top researchers in ornithology. If you have served as first author on at least two published papers, please write to Mark Penrose, our managing editor, mpenrose@americanornithology.org, to be added to our reviewer pool.
Students: Join the AOS pool of student reviewers
If you are a graduate student with limited experience in peer review, please contact our managing editor, Mark Penrose, mpenrose@americanornithology.org, to be added to our pool of student reviewers. Associate editors may invite you to be a student reviewer for a paper. Student reviewers provide reviews and are also able to see the reviews of other, more experienced peer reviewers.
Established Reviewers: Tell us about early-career reviewers and mentor your graduate students
Please let us know about early-career professionals who might be interested in serving as reviewers. We can reach out to them individually to recruit them. Early career professionals are often more difficult for us to discover than more established researchers, so your help is appreciated! Also, if you are asked to review a paper, you can include your graduate students in the reviewing process. Please see guidelines in your invitation-to-review letter.
Associate Editors: Search for student reviewers when looking for reviewers
Student reviewers have a special symbol in our editorial system so you can search for them as additional reviewers to the standard two or three.