A study examined the reading practices of reviews and editors of scholarly journals and their attitudes about their roles in the editorial process. Two-hundred thirty-seven reviewers (for a return rate of 50%) and 8 editors (for a return rate of 57%) of 14 journals (representative of those currently publishing articles in composition and representative aspects of the discipline) responded to two different questionnaires including closed- and open-ended questions. Results indicated that: (1) the most experienced and the least experienced reviewers expected a finished product, not a work in progress; (2) more experienced reviewers are almost always judging and critical in their editorial role as compared to less experienced readers; (3) when making decisions about submissions, one-third of reviewers who see their role as that of an arbiter feel more accountable to the editor, while nearly 53% of those who feel least accountable to the editor describe their own editorial role as that of a collaborator; (4) the more journals a reviewer reviews for, the greater the importance the reviewer gives to "contribution to the field" as a criterion for publication; (5) the more experienced a reviewer, the more likely he or she has done research on teacher response to student writing; and (6) those reviewers who have done research on teacher response to student writing were twice as likely as those who were familiar with such research to report that their research affected them considerably when reviewing submissions. (A profile of respondents and a list of significant findings are attached.) (RS)