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Of peer review and source checking at Interpreter

Of peer review and source checking at Interpreter

Last updated on: November 11, 2026 at 11:19 am by Dan Peterson

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Of peer review and source checking at Interpreter 2026-11-11T11:19:34-07:00 Dan Peterson

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It’s widely held among many observers that accessing the works of the Interpreter Foundation will likely prove, historically speaking, to have been the principal benefit to humankind of the invention of the personal computer. (Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)

Certain critics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and of me and all my works (and therefore, accordingly, critics of the Interpreter Foundation, which is far and away not merely a work of mine), like to mock and deride the Interpreter Foundation’s peer and, when feeling especially exuberant, to deny that such a process exists at all.

It does exist, of course. And it’s quite solid; we reject a not insubstantial proportion of the manuscripts that are submitted to us. From the beginning, we who launched the Interpreter Foundation — mostly affiliated with higher education — modeled its review and publication procedures on those with which we were familiar from our own work in academia.

But, as it turns out, Interpreter’s publication process goes beyond the usual in at least two significant ways:

One of those ways is this: Rather simply voting up or down on the acceptance of a manuscript, our editors — volunteers, who deserve enormous respect, credit, and thanks for the intensive work that they put into what they do — very often work with authors, often at considerable length, to improve what was originally submitted prior to its publication.

Another way in which Interpreter’s review and publication process exceeds the typical standard becomes apparent in this note that Interpreter’s Vice President of Operations, Allen Wyatt, sent to several of the Foundation’s leaders a couple of days ago, and which I share here with his permission:

All,

This past Friday I attended a luncheon put on by ScholarsArchive at BYU. Ellen (who is in charge of SA) invited editors from each of the journals that are included in SA. I attended to make sure that our relationship with SA remains strong.

There were a good number of attendees from various journals. I sat next to three people who were of great interest to our efforts at Interpreter. Two of the individuals are editors with Religious Educator (Religious Studies Center). The third is webmaster for what is being called BYU Religious Publications.

BYU Religious Publications is an “umbrella organization” for BYU Studies, Religious Educator, and the Maxwell Institute. The organization is primarily responsible for the online presence of the three organizations under the umbrella. A new website is being launched with a target date of January that will house all the publications from all three. In other words, the individual websites of BYU Studies, Religious Educator, and Maxwell Institute are being rolled into a single website. This obviously means that all of our links to articles at any of the existing websites will need to be changed. I’ve already put Alan in contact with Derek Gurr (the webmaster) to make sure this goes smoothly. I had no indication from Derek that Maxwell will be putting any of the older FARMS materials back online that they previously pulled.

The primary person I was talking to from Religious Educator was Becky Isom Call. She needed a bit of education as to who the main audience for Interpreter is, which I was happy to provide. I thought it odd that she didn’t already know, as she said that she had, at one time, worked at the Maxwell Institute.

What I found very interesting from my conversation with her is that Religious Educator is in the process of deciding how to do source checking in the future for their journal articles. In an effort to gather information to help make the decision, they contacted a number of editors from various religious journals — Journal of Early Christian Studies (Johns Hopkins), Journal of Theological Studies (Oxford), Theological Studies (Society in Jesus in the US and Canada), Journal of Religion (University of Chicago), and University of Utah Press. Every editor from all these journals indicated that none of them does source checking; they leave it up to the authors to be responsible for their sources. They indicated that sometimes they spot-check the sources, but only if a reviewer flags something. Based on this research, Becky indicated that Religious Educator will likely adopt the same approach in the near future.

Honestly, I’m flabbergasted. Not at the impending decision by Religious Educator, but that so many top-tier journals do no source checking. Perhaps I should not be so surprised, as we have had reports from many academics that our publishing process is more rigorous than anything they experience at other venues.

Just so you know, I have no plans for us to abandon source checking. Perhaps it is not the case with these other journals, but we have critics who would pounce if they thought that we didn’t check sources. Why give those critics the poison to pour into the well from which we hope others will drink?

Anyway, i thought that each of you would find this information of interest.

-Allen

A group of the Interpreter Foundation’s critics is shown gathering here to consider possible reservations about our workt. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

You can access the work of the Interpreter Foundation through a number of websites, including this one and this one and this one. We are, overwhelmingly, a volunteer organization. (Our leadership, for example, draws no pay.) But we do have unavoidable expenses and, as with prices everywhere else, those expenses are increasing. If you would like to contribute financially to Interpreter, whether in a small way or a big way, it would be deeply, deeply appreciated. (We are a tax exempt 501(c)3 organization.) Please go here to learn of ways in which you might contribute. And we always welcome volunteers. We’re pedaling as fast as we can, and additional help is always welcome.

The Salt Lake Valley from the air in 2010 (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

I spoke last night about Brigham Young and about Becoming Brigham to a relatively small group of older adults up in the southeastern Salt Lake Valley. They were receptive and interested, but it was disconcerting, yet again, to see that (as far as I could tell) none of them had previously heard of Becoming Brigham. How can we get the word out?

My critics at the Peterson Obsession Board like to say that the membership of the Church has heard of me, of Becoming Brigham, and of the other things that we do, and that they’ve found them wanting (or, in my personal case, morally repulsive and laughable) and rejected the whole lot. The truth is that most are completely unaware not only of me (lucky them!) but of Interpreter and all that it does. Typically, when they hear about our films and other projects, many of them turn out to be quite interested..

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