I'm about to submit a manuscript but the journal says that you must specify 3 reviewers, in a country other than your own.

Needless to say I have no idea where to start! I don't know any academics in the field really (grounded theory), apart from my supervisor, and certainly none internationally.

Has anyone else come across this and what did you do?

I'm just facing this with a journal article I'm about to submit (though it doesn't say they have to be in a country other than my own!)

My supervisor's advice was to look through my references for people who would really understand what I was writing, and also to look through previous issues of the targeted journal for similar papers that could be cited and then the authors suggested as reviewers. Might involve adding a couple of citations to the paper, but could be worth it. As well as really understanding your area, people you've cited (as long as you're not slating them!) might look on your paper more positively because they're name-checked, and also people who have had a paper published in the journal previously should have an idea of what the journal likes.

I guess if you really don't know anything about the people you could draw up a shortlist and then google/google scholar them to see how eminent and widely-published they are (someone who's only ever published one paper might not be a great choice...)

Hope that helps!

Hi Noctu,

I haven't come across that but as the topic of my thesis is so unique (more like random :p), I had to look for reviewers outside my little bubble.

The way I did it was to look for someone who was fairly knowledgeable in the analysis method and another two who had conducted research in similar topics. I just looked at my reference list and papers related to the topic and then googled the authors to see what their interests were like.

If you need them to be from another country, you could just see their affiliated institution on their paper? That will tell you where they're based so you wouldn't have to google them?