This paper argues that the scholarly review process in refereed academic journal publishing restricts research creativity and timeliness, promotes inertia, and wastes resources. The publishing process of a Canadian journal (The Canadian Journal of Educational Communication), published three times annually, which uses a blind referee process is described as an example. The paper details a manuscript's journey from initial administrative check, to editorial review, to peer reviewer selection, to peer review, to publication decision, to return to author for suggested revisions, to final check. Benefits to this process are identified such as opportunities for valuable critical commentary helpful to other academics, sifting of the best material for publication, convenient method of discrimination for tenure evaluation, establishment of professional standards for research and scholarship, and keeping costs down. Drawbacks to peer review are also described and they include reviewer bias, discouragement of the exploration of fringe topics, and a generally slow pace of scholarly change. The long time taken by peer review also causes many articles to go unpublished. Finally the process of producing print-based journals is costly. The paper suggests that more journals move to alternative electronic formats which would allow publishing of everything submitted and rapid introduction of material into the academic marketplace. (JB)