General Information for Reviewers
Reviewing a manuscript is a privilege and a time-consuming responsibility. It is important that the manuscripts are critically evaluated for the compliance with the following criteria: novelty, importance to the specific field and strong evidence for the conclusions that are drawn.
All submitted manuscripts are reviewed by Editor-in-Chief and/or Field editor for relevancy to meet our editorial criteria. Manuscripts retained for review are sent to two or three referees, chosen by Field editor or Editor. Authors are also encouraged to suggest independent reviewers, which may be considered by editorial team. The journal applies single-blind peer review, in which reviewers know the identity of authors, but authors do not know the identity of reviewers. Based on the advice of the reviewers, the editor decides to: accept the manuscript with or without minor revision, invite the authors to revise the manuscript before a final decision is reached, or reject the manuscript on lack of novelty, insufficient conceptual advance or major technical and/or interpretational problems.
Reviewers may recommend a particular course of action in their confidential comments to the editor, but should bear in mind that the editors may have to make a decision based on conflicting advice. Furthermore, editorial decisions are based on an evaluation of the strengths of the arguments raised by each referee and by the authors. The most useful referee reports, therefore, are those that set out clear, substantiated arguments and might include a recommendation of a course of action directed to the authors.