Understanding ST's Peer Review (soctheory-review-process)

When to trigger

• You just received an ST decision letter and need to interpret it
• You do not know what ST review weights or expects of you
• You are deciding whether an R&R is worth pursuing and how to read the editor's signals
• You need to triage reviewer comments by what ST actually values

What ST review is (durable norms)

ST uses double-anonymous peer review through SAGE's web-based system (Manuscript Central, mc.manuscriptcentral.com/soct; 检索于 2026-06；以官网为准). The durable shape:

• A handling editor assigns the paper to reviewers expert in your theoretical tradition. (The editorial team rotates; recent ST guidance lists a multi-person editor group rather than a single EIC — confirm the current slate on the official ASA/ST page; do not name individuals from memory. See resources/official-source-map.md.)
• Reviews focus on what ST exists to protect: a genuine conceptual contribution (a new way of seeing — see soctheory-contribution-framing), conceptual clarity, internal consistency, the logical soundness of the argument, and engagement with the relevant tradition. Reviewers do not ask about identification, sample size, robustness, or measurement validity — those are ASR/AJS criteria.
• Decisions are commonly: Reject; Major Revision (R&R); Minor Revision; rarely an immediate Accept. Multiple rounds are normal for theory papers.
• An R&R is an invitation, not a promise; the bar can rise across rounds.

Desk-reject triggers specific to ST

The editor screens for fit and contribution before sending a paper out. Most common ST desk rejects: (1) "this is an empirical paper" (a hypothesis test in disguise); (2) a literature review with no original theoretical move; (3) an "application" of a theory that does not change the theory; (4) conceptual relabeling presented as new theory; (5) an argument with no engaged tradition; (6) length/format/masking failures or out-of-scope submissions (route to ASR/AJS, Sociological Methodology, ARS, or Theory and Society).

Reading the decision letter

Triaging reviewer comments

• Read the editor's letter as the master key. When reviewers disagree, the editor's framing tells you which issues are decision-critical.
• Separate substance comments from presentation comments. A missing mechanism or an undefended proposition outranks wording.
• Distinguish "the theory is wrong" from "the prose hid a sound argument." The first needs re-theorizing; the second needs soctheory-writing-style.
• Note conflicts between reviewers and plan to adjudicate them transparently (in soctheory-rebuttal).

Checklist

• Decision type identified (Reject / Major R&R / Minor)
• The editor's stated priorities extracted and ranked
• Each reviewer comment tagged: substance vs. presentation
• Comments mapped to the skill that addresses them (theory / argument / positioning / scope / contribution)
• Reviewer conflicts identified for transparent adjudication
• Realistic judgment made on whether the revision can meet the raised bar

Anti-patterns

• Treating an R&R as acceptance and making only cosmetic changes
• Ignoring the editor's letter and responding only to reviewers
• Reading reviews as "the reviewers will fix the theory for me"
• Promising to add an empirical test — ST neither wants nor accepts one
• Underestimating the number of rounds and over-claiming the revision is final

Output format

【Decision type】Reject / Major (R&R) / Minor
【Editor's priorities】ranked list
【Comment triage】substance: [...] | presentation: [...]
【Skill mapping】comment → soctheory-* skill
【Reviewer conflicts】[...]
【Go / no-go】pursue revision? rationale
【Next step】soctheory-rebuttal