Become a Reviewer
Join Our Peer Review Community
Northeast Langchive relies on expert peer reviewers to maintain the highest standards of scholarship on Northeast India’s indigenous languages. Our reviewers come from diverse backgrounds-linguists, language technologists, computational researchers, educators, community practitioners, and indigenous language speakers with specialized knowledge. This diversity strengthens our publications and ensures that research serves both academic rigor and community needs.
Peer review is the foundation of quality academic publishing. As a reviewer, you play a critical role in shaping research that impacts language preservation, revitalization, and technological development across Northeast India’s 220+ languages. Your expertise helps authors strengthen their work, ensures methodological soundness, and validates contributions that advance the field.
We’re building a reviewer community that reflects the linguistic and cultural diversity of Northeast India. Whether you’re based in the region or working internationally, whether you hold a doctoral degree or bring deep community knowledge and language expertise, we welcome your participation. Good reviewers combine subject matter knowledge with constructive feedback skills and a commitment to supporting emerging scholarship.
Areas of Expertise We Need
Our publications span the intersection of indigenous languages, technology, and cultural preservation. We particularly seek reviewers with knowledge in one or more of these areas:
Linguistics and language documentation, especially for Tibeto-Burman, Austroasiatic, or Indo-Aryan languages of Northeast India. This includes expertise in phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, sociolinguistics, language endangerment, and revitalization strategies. We value both formal linguistic training and deep knowledge gained through community language work.
Natural language processing and computational linguistics for low-resource languages. This encompasses corpus development, machine learning models, speech recognition, machine translation, text-to-speech systems, and evaluation methodologies. Reviewers with experience adapting NLP techniques to languages with limited digital resources are especially valuable.
Digital humanities and language technology applications, including mobile app development for language learning, digital archiving platforms, database design for linguistic data, Unicode implementation, keyboard and input method development, and user interface design for minority language contexts.
Education and pedagogy for indigenous language teaching, whether in formal school settings, community programs, or digital learning environments. This includes curriculum development, assessment methods, gamification approaches, and intergenerational transmission strategies.
Anthropology, ethnography, and community-engaged research with indigenous populations. We need reviewers who can assess the ethical dimensions of language research, evaluate community participation methodologies, and understand cultural protocols around knowledge sharing and data sovereignty.
Policy, planning, and infrastructure for digital language rights, government language programs, funding mechanisms for language work, and sustainability models for community-led initiatives.
What Reviewing Involves
Reviewing for Northeast Langchive is a meaningful but time-limited commitment. When we invite you to review a specific chapter, you’ll receive the manuscript with author identities removed (double-blind process) along with review guidelines and evaluation criteria. You’ll have approximately two to six weeks to read the chapter carefully and provide detailed feedback.
Your review should assess the chapter’s contribution to the field, methodological soundness, clarity of argumentation, engagement with relevant literature, and significance for Northeast Indian language communities. We ask reviewers to be both rigorous and constructive-identifying weaknesses while suggesting pathways for improvement. The best reviews help authors understand not just what needs to change, but why and how to address concerns.
We expect reviewers to provide written feedback of roughly 200-500 words addressing the chapter’s strengths, areas for improvement, and an overall recommendation (accept with minor revisions, revise and resubmit, or reject). You’ll also complete a brief evaluation form covering specific criteria. Most reviewers spend 2-5 hours total on a review, though this varies depending on chapter length and complexity.
You can decline any review invitation without explanation. We understand that schedules fluctuate and not every manuscript aligns with your expertise. We only ask that you respond to invitations within one week so we can find alternative reviewers if needed.
Reviewers must maintain confidentiality about manuscripts under review and declare any conflicts of interest (personal relationships with authors, direct competition in the same research area, institutional conflicts). We’re committed to ethical review practices that ensure fairness and scholarly integrity.
Why Review for Northeast Langchive
Peer review is often invisible labor in academia, but we believe it deserves recognition and brings tangible benefits to reviewers. By reviewing for Northeast Langchive, you contribute directly to advancing scholarship on underrepresented languages while staying current with cutting-edge research in the field. Reading pre-publication work exposes you to emerging methods, datasets, and ideas before they reach wider audiences.
Reviewing sharpens your own scholarship. The critical reading skills, methodological insights, and theoretical perspectives you develop as a reviewer strengthen your own research and writing. Many reviewers report that evaluating others’ work helps them identify weaknesses in their own manuscripts and think more rigorously about research design.
You’ll be acknowledged in our annual reviewer list (with your permission), providing visibility within the specialized community of Northeast Indian language researchers. For early-career scholars, reviewer experience demonstrates scholarly service and expertise to hiring and promotion committees. For established researchers, it offers leadership opportunities in an emerging field.
Perhaps most importantly, you’ll join a community committed to ethical, community-centered research on indigenous languages. Northeast Langchive operates on open access principles with no author fees, prioritizes indigenous voices and participation, and explicitly works toward preservation and revitalization rather than purely extractive documentation. Your reviewer service supports these values and helps ensure published research meets high standards for both scholarship and community impact.
Express Your Interest
If you’re interested in joining our reviewer community, please email us with a brief message (200-300 words) introducing yourself and describing your expertise. Include:
Your name, current position, and institutional affiliation (if any). Independent researchers and community practitioners are welcome-formal academic affiliation is not required.
Your areas of expertise related to Northeast Indian languages, language technology, or related fields. Be specific about languages you work with, methodologies you use, or topics you’re qualified to evaluate.
A brief note about your experience with academic peer review. If you’re new to reviewing, that’s perfectly fine-we can provide mentorship and pair you with experienced reviewers for your first assignments.
Attach a current CV or resume if available, though this is optional.
Contact us at:
editor@northeastlangchive.org
We’ll add you to our reviewer database and reach out when manuscripts matching your expertise are submitted. There’s no obligation to accept every invitation, you maintain full control over your reviewing commitments.
Thank you for considering this important scholarly service. Strong peer review makes quality research possible, and quality research serves the communities whose languages and knowledge make our work meaningful.