For Reviewers

Responsibilities of reviewers

• To contribute to the high academic quality of the journal by reviewing manuscripts objectively and impartially.
• To adhere to the journal’s policies, and not to disseminate or reveal any information about the manuscript and authors.
• To reflect their scientific research expertise by making decisions with professional comments.
• To uphold the integrity and impartiality of scientific research, and to raise issues of potential ethical violations for consideration by the Editor-in-Chief.
• To avoid excessive self-citations of reviewers’ publications that are not relevant to the manuscript.
• To honestly disclose potential conflicts of interest so as to avoid suspicion of peer review manipulation.

 

How reviewers are selected

The selection of reviewers is critical and relates to the quality of review reports. It is based on experts’ academic reputation, level of activities in recent years, publishing experience, etc. Scholars are welcome to nominate themselves as reviewers by sending CVs to the Editorial Office.

• Hold a doctoral degree in the related field.
• Have published at least two peer-reviewed articles in a related journal included by Web of Science (WoS).
• Be currently active in this field community.

 

Reviewers’ training

• Ethics of reviewing

Reviewers should notice the editorial and ethical policies of this journal, especially the policies on conflict of interest, peer review process, authorship, misconduct, data and reproducibility, copyright and license, etc. Reviewers must declare their conflicts of interest, and take the responsibility for research reliability. The journal has a clearly described process for handling allegations. Reviewers should complain about any potential ethical issues to the journal office, and must avoid ethical allegations by adhering to the journal’s ethical policies.

 

• Review procedure

Scholars may be invited by an assistant editor to review a new manuscript. Signed statements of conflict of interest (COI) from the scholars must be collected. After the confirmation of no COI by the managing editor, scholars will be appointed as reviewers. At least two external-independent reviewers are preferred for one manuscript. In case of disputes over the recommendations in review reports, members of the editorial board whose interests are in line with the manuscript theme may be invited and added to serve as reviewers. Reviewers must comply with the peer review policy of each journal.

After the authors have revised the manuscript point by point in accordance with the reviewers’ comments with detailed explanation, reviewers will review it again for further comments. The publisher suggests a maximus of two review rounds.

 

• Review report

When preparing a valuable review report, reviewers should consider the following points:

• All the manuscripts must fit the scope and aim of the journal.
• Does the title, keywords, and abstract cover this study?
• Is the article type appropriate for the text?
• Are the data and conclusions reliable and scientific? Are there missing data making it insufficient to draw this conclusion?
• Is the language clear and easy to read?
• Are there any potential challenges to misconduct or ethical violations? For example, ethical violation, lack of originality, missing necessary statements, etc. Please do not hesitate to address the authors and editors.

 

An innovative study will contribute to the development of scholarship in the field. Conversely, a study with unreliable or outdated data, confusing structure, and unscientific conclusions will tarnish the reputation of the journal and all the editorial participants.

Reviewers must take their responsibility seriously and select high-quality articles for publication. It is a responsibility both to the disciplinary community and to one’s academic reputation.

 

• Editorial decision making

Reviewers are expected to acknowledge this request within 7 days, and they are given 20 days to review the manuscript carefully along with a valuable report. Authors must respond to the reviewers with point-to-point explanations, and reviewers must consider carefully the revised version with a final suggested decision. Each review round undergoes the same procedure.

Reviewers can recommend the following decisions:

Acceptance: the manuscript only needs minor non-critical revisions or no revision and will move to the editorial layout stage.

Minor revision: authors need to make minor revisions with point-to-point responses to the reviewers.

Major revision: authors need to make major revisions with point-to-point responses to the reviewers. Reviewers have the right to reject the manuscript at any round review.

Rejection: the manuscript will be rejected.

 

AI tools

Reviewers are responsible for the comments expressed in their report, and they must keep cutting-edge knowledge and up-to-date understanding. AI tools may generate biased or false information. If the manuscript was uploaded to an AI database, it is highly likely that irregular AI tools will lead to leakage of information about the manuscript and scientific data, and unreasonable conclusions. Sin-Chn Scientific Press does not encourage reviewers to use generative AI tools.

Peer reviewers should declare it if an AI tool was used for preparing a review report.