---
abstract: 'Peer review is, with near universality, now insisted upon as required pre-certification before a work can be published — allegedly, and questioningly, serving as a stamp of approval that assures the reader of its quality, validity, and accuracy. Today’s peer review is different in substance, but not in form, from the pre-publication censorship that so enraged Milton and led him to write his _Areopagitica_. The position he took nearly four hundred years ago reminds us that pre-publication restraint is the expres-sion of the interlinked fears of nonconformity, of the vulnerability of professional territorial turf, of disturbance of the status quo, and fear of independence of thought and resulting innovation. We are reminded that the principal target of intellectual suppression is the creative mind.'
altloc:
  - http://www.willamette.edu/~sbartlet/Documents/Bartlett_Peer%20Review%20as%20an%20Insult%20to%20the%20Reader.pdf
  - http://www.willamette.edu/~sbartlet
chapter: ~
commentary: ~
commref: ~
confdates: ~
conference: ~
confloc: ~
contact_email: ~
creators_id:
  - sbartlet@willamette.edu
creators_name:
  - family: Bartlett
    given: Steven James
    honourific: Dr.
    lineage: ''
date: 2017-06-02
date_type: published
datestamp: 2017-08-16 13:45:03
department: ~
dir: disk0/00/01/02/61
edit_lock_since: ~
edit_lock_until: 0
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editors_id: []
editors_name: []
eprint_status: archive
eprintid: 10261
fileinfo: ~
full_text_status: public
importid: ~
institution: ~
isbn: ~
ispublished: pub
issn: ~
item_issues_comment: []
item_issues_count: ~
item_issues_description: []
item_issues_id: []
item_issues_reported_by: []
item_issues_resolved_by: []
item_issues_status: []
item_issues_timestamp: []
item_issues_type: []
keywords: 'peer review, pre-publication censorship, John Milton'
lastmod: 2017-08-16 13:45:03
latitude: ~
longitude: ~
metadata_visibility: show
note: ~
number: ~
pagerange: ~
pubdom: FALSE
publication: ~
publisher: ~
refereed: FALSE
referencetext: "Bartlett, Steven James (2005). The Pathology of Man: A Study of Human Evil. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.\r\n\r\nBartlett, Steven James (2011). Normality Does Not Equal Mental Health: The Need to Look Elsewhere for Standards of Good Psychological Health. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.\r\n\r\nMilton, John (1973/1644). Areopagitica and On Education. K. M. Lea (Ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press.\r\n"
relation_type: []
relation_uri: []
reportno: ~
rev_number: 8
series: ~
source: ~
status_changed: 2017-08-16 13:45:03
subjects:
  - peer-review
succeeds: ~
suggestions: ~
sword_depositor: ~
sword_slug: ~
thesistype: ~
title: "Peer Review — An Insult to the Reader and to Society: Milton's View"
type: other
userid: 8197
volume: ~
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