What does the role of a reviewer include?

Question

Accepted Answer

Reviewers are asked to evaluate the quality of the manuscript and to provide a recommendation on whether a manuscript can be accepted, requires revisions, or should be rejected.

We ask invited reviewers to:

accept or decline any invitations quickly based on the manuscript title and abstract;
suggest alternative reviewers if an invitation must be declined;
request an extension in case more time is required to compose a report;
let us know if anyone else, such as a student, will participate in writing the review.

As part of the assessment, reviewers will be asked to:

rate the originality, significance, quality of the presentation, scientific soundness, interest to the readers, overall merit, and English level of the manuscript;
look at the reference list of the manuscript and check if there are inappropriate self-citations;
provide an overall recommendation for the publication of the manuscript;
provide a detailed, constructive review report.

We ask reviewers to inform the Editorial Office if they hold any conflicts of interest that may prejudice the review report, either in a positive or negative way. The Editorial Office will check for this as much as possible before sending an invitation, though we appreciate the cooperation of reviewers on this matter.

Reviewers should keep the content of the manuscript, including the abstract, confidential.