---
name: ci-review-process
description: Use to understand how Critical Inquiry (CI) evaluates a submission — peer review plus close reading by the editors-in-chief in consultation with the editorial team, the no-simultaneous-submission rule, the commissioned/special-issue routes, and the high ambition bar that defines the journal. Sets expectations and shapes the essay to survive review; it does not contact editors.
---

# Review Process (ci-review-process)

Knowing how CI reads submissions lets you pre-empt the failure modes before sending. CI is
**peer-reviewed**, and all peer-reviewed and commissioned manuscripts are **thoroughly reviewed by the
editors-in-chief in consultation with the editorial team**. The decisive question is always the same:
**is this a real intervention worthy of the journal's ambition bar?**

## When to trigger

- Before submitting, to stress-test the essay against CI's expectations
- Deciding whether your project is an unsolicited Article or a likely commissioned piece
- Considering a special-issue proposal
- Interpreting a decision and setting expectations

## How CI review works

1. **Editorial reading is central.** Beyond external referees, the **editors-in-chief read in
   consultation with the editorial team** — the essay must persuade serious generalist critics, not
   only subfield specialists.
2. **The ambition bar.** CI seeks "cutting-edge thought" and the "best critical thought in the arts
   and humanities." A competent, correct, but unsurprising essay is the typical non-fit — the journal
   wants an intervention (see `ci-argument-and-intervention`).
3. **Interdisciplinary legibility.** Editors and readers come from across the humanities; an essay
   that only a single subfield can follow or value is at risk (see `ci-scholarly-positioning`).
4. **No multiple/simultaneous submission.** CI does **not** accept manuscripts under consideration
   elsewhere — submit to CI alone.
5. **Commissioned and special-issue content.** Critical Responses and some pieces are commissioned;
   special-issue proposals follow an editor-managed route (the exact workflow is not fully public —
   see 待核实 in the source map).
6. **Revisions expected.** Acceptance typically follows author revisions; an invitation to revise is a
   serious, encouraging signal (see `ci-revision-and-response`).

## Shape the essay to pass

- Make the **intervention and its stakes** unmistakable early.
- Ensure a reader from another field can both **follow** and **care**.
- Read objects closely enough that the claim is **earned**, not asserted.
- Get the apparatus right so review is about ideas, not formatting (see `ci-citation-and-style`).

## Anti-patterns

- Submitting a competent reading with no intervention (the classic near-miss)
- An essay legible only to one subfield
- Submitting simultaneously to another journal (against CI policy)
- Treating theory as ornament that referees will see through
- Assuming length or erudition substitutes for a claim


## Review-risk pass for Critical Inquiry

Treat this skill as an executable review pass, not a prose hint. First lock the object, theoretical stakes, interpretive turn, and permission/citation discipline; then judge whether the current manuscript answers the venue's real reader: humanities reviewers who expect a strong interpretive intervention rather than an empirical-results narrative.

- **Do the pass:** Turn probable reviewer objections into a ledger with response evidence, manuscript location, and the decision-maker who must be convinced first.
- **Return a ledger:** give `claim / evidence / risk / manuscript location` rows, so the next agent can edit rather than rediscover the issue.
- **Sibling guard:** compare against PMLA for literary-field reach, New Literary History for theory/history, Representations for historically grounded cultural analysis; if a sibling owns the contribution, recommend re-routing before polishing format.
- **Stop condition:** do not give submission-ready advice until the pack's `resources/official-source-map.md` has been checked for volatile rules and the manuscript has one concrete fix for the largest venue-specific risk.

## Output format

```
【Intervention clear early?】[Y/N]
【Interdisciplinary legibility】followable + valuable beyond one field? [Y/N]
【Objects read, claim earned?】[Y/N]
【Single submission】not under consideration elsewhere? [Y/N]
【Route】unsolicited Article / commissioned / special issue
【Next】ci-submission (or ci-revision-and-response if decided)
```

## Supplementary resources

- [`../../resources/official-source-map.md`](../../resources/official-source-map.md) — review model, no-simultaneous-submission rule, commissioning notes, 待核实 items
- [`../../resources/external_tools.md`](../../resources/external_tools.md) — process and portal summary