Reviewing a manuscript written by a fellow scientist is a privilege. However, it is a time-consuming responsibility. Hence, SSJ's Editorial Board, authors, and audiences appreciate your willingness to accept this responsibility and your dedication. SSJ adheres to a double-blind peer-review process that is rapid and fair, and also ensures a high quality of articles published. In so doing, SSJ needs reviewers who can provide insightful and helpful comments on submitted manuscripts with a turn around time of about 4 weeks. Maintaining SSJ as a scientific journal of high quality depends on reviewers with a high level of expertise and an ability to be objective, fair, and insightful in their evaluation of manuscripts.
REVIEWERS’ RESPONSIBILITIES
(http://publicationethics.org/files/u7140/Peer%20review%20guidelines.pdf)
If SSJ's Editor-in-Chief has invited you to review a manuscript, please consider the following:
- Reviewing manuscript critically, but constructively and preparing detailed comments about the manuscript to help authors improve their work
- Reviewing multiple versions of a manuscript as necessary
- Providing all required information within established deadlines
- Making recommendations to the editor regarding the suitability of the manuscript for publication in the journal
- Declaring to the editor any potential conflicts of interest with respect to the authors or the content of a manuscript they are asked to review
- Reporting possible research misconducts
- Suggesting alternative reviewers in case they cannot review the manuscript for any reasons
- Treating the manuscript as a confidential document
- Not making any use of the work described in the manuscript
- Not communicating directly with authors, if somehow they identify the authors
- Not identifying themselves to authors
- Not passing on the assigned manuscript to another reviewer
- Ensuring that the manuscript is of high quality and original work
- Informing the editor if he/she finds the assigned manuscript is under consideration in any other publication to his/her knowledge
- Writing review report in English only
- Authoring a commentary for publication related to the reviewed manuscript.
WHAT SHOULD BE CHECKED WHILE REVIEWING A MANUSCRIPT?
- Novelty of the topic
- Originality
- Scientific reliability
- Valuable contribution to the science
- Adding new aspects to the existed field of study
- Ethical aspects
- Structure of the article submitted and its relevance to authors’ guidelines
- References provided to substantiate the content
- Grammar, punctuation, and spelling
- Scientific misconduct