The Editor(s) are responsible for managing the manuscript evaluation process and making decisions regarding the acceptance or rejection of articles submitted to the journal. These responsibilities include acknowledging receipt of submissions, assessing each submission for its relevance to the journal’s scope, selecting appropriate reviewers for each manuscript, contacting potential reviewers to confirm their availability, sending manuscripts for review, following up with reviewers to obtain their comments, collecting reviewers’ recommendations, making final decisions regarding acceptance or rejection, preparing a decision letter to the Authors with recommendations for revisions, and reviewing revised manuscripts upon receipt.
One of the key stages of the process described above is peer review. This process is often time-consuming and demanding. Your contribution therefore helps us publish high-quality research as efficiently as possible, enabling it to reach the widest possible readership and achieve the greatest possible impact.
Below, we provide guidelines for Reviewers that may be helpful in preparing a thorough review report and making an appropriate recommendation:
- The review should be the Reviewer’s own original scientific assessment, based on their personal expertise in the relevant field, and prepared without the use of AI tools.
- The review should be written in concise and clear language.
- Please describe both the strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript, taking into account its scientific novelty.
- If plagiarism or self-plagiarism is suspected, the Reviewer is required to report this.
- If there is reason to suspect that AI tools were used in the preparation of the article, the Reviewer should report this and provide justification for their concerns.
- If there is reason to suspect that fabricated or falsified data were used in the preparation of the article, the Reviewer should report this and provide justification for their concerns.
- The Reviewer should assess the reference list for its relevance to the subject of the article. Particular attention should be paid to whether the Authors make excessive or unjustified use of self-citations.
- Reviewers are discouraged from recommending citations to their own publications or those of their close collaborators. Exceptions may be made in occasional cases where information contained in such publications is genuinely necessary to substantially improve the quality of the article.
When preparing the review, the Reviewer should address the following questions:
(a) Does the work significantly advance knowledge or contribute to developments in the field?
(b) Are the conclusions of the work convincing and sufficiently supported by experimental evidence?
(c) Is the experimental section sufficiently detailed to enable others to reproduce the work? (This question does not apply to review articles.)
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the review process, please do not hesitate to contact the Editor-in-Chief, Professor Radomir Jasiński, at r.jasinski@sci-rad.com