Peer Review Process

Peer review is designed to assess the validity, quality, and often the originality of articles for publication. Its ultimate purpose is to maintain the integrity of science by filtering out invalid or poor-quality articles.

From the publisher's perspective, peer review acts as a filter for content, with higher-quality articles being published in higher-quality journals. Eventually, journal brands received a lot of attention.

The process of peer review adds value to articles. As a result, publishers must ensure thorough peer review.

The peer review process

The peer review process can be broadly summarised into the following steps, though these steps may differ slightly between journals. See what's involved below.

Editor Feedback: “Reviewers should remember that they are representing the readers of the journal. Will the readers of this particular journal find this informative and useful?”

1. Submission of Paper
   Authors must submit their papers in Word format only via the online submission system.
2. Editorial Office Check Plagiarism
   

   Verifies that the paper meets the journal's criteria for originality and interest. If not, the paper might be rejected without further consideration.

3. Editors Assigned to Peer reviewers: The handling editor sends invitations to individuals he or she believes would be appropriate reviewers. As responses are received, further invitations are issued, if necessary, until the required number of acceptances is obtained – commonly this is 2, but there is some variation between journals.
4. Response to Invitations
   Potential reviewers consider the invitation against their own expertise, conflicts of interest, and availability. They then accept or decline. If possible, when declining, they might also suggest alternative reviewers.
5. Review is Conducted
   The reviewer sets time aside to read the paper several times. The first read is used to form an initial impression of the work. If major problems are found at this stage, the reviewer may feel comfortable rejecting the paper without further work. Otherwise, they will read the paper several more times, taking notes so as to build a detailed point-by-point review. The review is then submitted to the journal, with a recommendation to accept or reject it – or else with a request for revision (usually flagged as either major or minor) before it is reconsidered.
6. Further, a review Needed
   The handling editor considers all the returned reviews before making an overall decision. If the reviews differ widely, the editor may invite an additional reviewer so as to get an extra opinion before making a decision.
7. The Decision is Communicated
   The editor sends a decision email to the author including any relevant reviewer comments. Whether the comments are anonymous or not will depend on the type of peer review that the journal operates.
8. Next Steps
   If accepted, the paper is sent to production. If the article is rejected or sent back for either major or minor revision, the handling editor should include constructive comments from the reviewers to help the author improve the article. At this point, reviewers should also be sent an email or letter letting them know the outcome of their review. If the paper was sent back for revision, the reviewers should expect to receive a new version, unless they have opted out of further participation. However, where only minor changes were requested this follow-up review might be done by the handling editor.