Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

As a scientist, I understand the value of peer-reviewed articles. There's a certain level of credence given to articles that are published in journals that have been looked at and questioned by the author's peers.

What I am fast beginning to learn, however, is that not all journals are created equal. I just finished a short article "The Sorcerer's Stone: A Touchstone for Readers of all Ages" (Wood and Quackenbush, English Journal, January 2001. p97-103) and about the only use for this seven page article is to give suggestions on how Harry Potter can be used for teaching in the classroom.

Yes, I understand that this is important to educators trying to connect with their students the world over, but what I can't understand is why it took them seven pages to get their points across, amongst other things.

My biggest issues with the article, in order of discovery:

• The use of first person in the article. I hate it in any article. The 'we did this and then we did that' method of reporting shows a lack of communication as far as I'm concerned (and I'm including scientific papers in that as well).


• The background behind the series and brief synopsis of the book is just wrong. And the timeline is all screwy. For a start, the implication is that JK Rowling lived in Edinburgh when she started writing the series. Then, we're told the book 'opens with the story of Harry's survival and where he spent the first eleven years of his life'. Hagrid, who is described as 'an ogre', finds Harry and the Dursleys 'hiding on a boat'. Harry was 'named...a Gryffindor and soon becomes friends with Ron, a boy he met on the train to Hogwarts'. Quidditch is labelled as 'a pasttime' and Harry 'looks up to find Snape staring directly at him' during the Quidditch match. The mission Harry, Ron and Hermione find themselves involved in is 'learning the identity of Nicolas Flamel', finding only 'that Snape is preoccupied with the Sorcerer's Stone'. Three sentences later, we're informed that 'the book concludes with Harry returning to the Dursley's for the summer, leaving the reader wondering what happens in the next Harry Potter book.' It leaves this reader wondering if the authors and herself read the same book. Um, where is Voldemort through all of this?


• A rather useless, informal and open-ended survey (with a cohort of 50, a random assortment of people the authors knew), the questions of which were not supplied with the article. In their favour, however, they do actually call it a 'less-than-scientific survey'. A whole page of the article was given to the results of this survey to show how relevant the book is to readers of all ages, (cohort age range from seven to sixty-two).


• Citing anecdotal data and informal conversations, they state that the Harry Potter books are read predominantly by white people and that Rowling's background and culture, that of 'Edinburgh, Scotland', is the likely reason for this.

I won't go into the teaching suggestions, of which there are four. Since I'm not a teacher, I have no grounds to comment on this.

The conclusion wasn't so much of a "using these methods outlined above, you can bring Harry Potter into the classroom" as you would expect, but more of 'we cite this book because it's wonderful regardless of what the critics say, whether they are for or against it. Oh and by the way, we don't know how teachers and students will use this in the classroom but we reckon you'll anxiously await the next book during lunch' kind of conclusion.

I really don't understand the reason this article was written. Surely it could have been a short communication or letter. I have a sneaking suspicion that this will be just one of many articles I'll read where the authors do go on a bit about nothing in particluar. Sometimes, even peer-reviewed wank is still wank.