Much of academic publishing depends on peer review, a literary form that never sees the light of day and only rarely reveals its author's name to the intended reader. While a negative judgment can be upsetting, the serious review, no matter what the ultimate verdict on publication, normally contains probing comments and suggestions that will keep even a prodigious and accomplished scholar at his workbench a good while longer. Yet, though we are accustomed to reading authors' ritualistic acknowledgments of criticisms that have helped them, scholars rarely discuss or seldom glimpse the evidence from this crucial stage of a publication-in-process. In this article, the author discusses how the genre of peer review writing has been so much underappreciated. The author also describes the aspects of a good peer review.