Referees are not usually among the members of the editorial board. As a general rule, this peer review system helps the chief editor be informed from the scientific contents and writing status of an article and then makes a decision. Ultimately, the editorial board is responsible for decisions regarding the acceptance or rejection of the article.
Performance of review process
In a peer review system, variety assessments can be done from article presentation up to its publication and acceptance. In this process after article submission by author, chief editor may fast reject article before sending to referees due to lack of correlation between article content and journal aims and scope or unacceptable quality level. Papers passed this barrier will be sent to dominant referee. During review process, based on the refereeing form prepared by the editorial team, the referees should generally divide all manuscripts into three categories:
1. Publishable, without any modification or with minor changes: Journal sometimes revises minor changes such as typographical or grammatical errors and there is no need to send the article to the author for correction.
2. Unpublishable: When the paper in terms of quality and quantity is very low, the referees reject it.
3. Publishable subject to correction: In this case, the referees will propose necessary modifications. This correction function increases the value of the article. Usage statistics from proposed modifications is more than the other two options.
Review process will be based on pre-defined templates which were designed as guidelines for the referees on several pages. The referees also are requested along with the templates and forms to present their comments about the paper. A final decision to accept, revise, resubmit, or reject the manuscript will be sent by the editor(s) to the author along with any recommendations made by the referees.
At this point, the author of this article should correct the article on the basis of the referees and the editor comments. Modified article will be sent to the referees for revising and declaring final approval.
Editorial policies
The Journal of PizhÅ«hish dar dÄ«n va salÄmat is a peer-reviewed academic journal, where all submitted manuscripts are read by the editor-in-chief and two other peer-reviewers. This journal uses double-blind review, which means that both the reviewer and author identities are concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa, throughout the review process.
Manuscript requirements
To be published in the Journal of PizhÅ«hish dar dÄ«n va salÄmat, a paper should meet two types of criteria:
1. Technical screening criteria, before sending the manuscript for peer review
a. Editors will first go through the manuscript considering its format, paging, figure preparation, authors’ information and similar matters. These criteria will be published in the journal under the title of “publication requirementsâ€.
b. Editors will then consider “the editor-in-chief’s requirementsâ€. They will ensure if the manuscript meets the editor-in-chief’s criteria and fits for the Journal of PizhÅ«hish dar dÄ«n va salÄmat purpose.
2. Referee’s criteria, which are located in three categories
a. In this step special attention is paid by the editors to the scientific importance, scientific content, novelty, structure and clarity of the paper.
b. The submitted material should include required elements of style: title, authors and affiliations, abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, conclusion, acknowledgements, and references.
c. evaluation of other articles like reviews and etc. will need other requirements.
The most effective criteria in acceptance of articles
- Being original and novel
-Lying within the scope of the journal
- Observing the writing guidelines based on the journal format
- The author’s ability to present the topic effectively
- Observing the ethical guidelines in research and having a code of ethics
