Guidelines For Reviewers:
- Keep manuscript and review details secret.
- Not use information obtained during the peer-review process for themselves or other persons.
- Not allow their reviews to be influenced by the nationality, religious or political beliefs, or by commercial considerations.
- Be objective and constructive in their reviews.
- Respond in a reasonable time-frame, only agree to review a manuscript if they can return a review within the proposed time-frame, informing the journal promptly if they require an extension.
- Review again any manuscript they have previously reviewed for another journal as it may have changed between the two submissions.
- Notify the journal immediately if they have concerns about ethical aspects of the work, are aware of substantial similarity between the manuscript and a concurrent submission to another journal or a published article; reviewers should, however, keep their concerns secret and not personally investigate more unless the journal asks for further information or advice.
- Not contact the authors directly without the permission of the journal.
- Provide evidence with appropriate references to substantiate general statements such as, ‘this work has been done before’, to help editors in their evaluation and decision and in fairness to the authors.
- Not attempt to rewrite the paper to their own preferred style if it is basically sound and clear; suggestions for changes that improve clarity are, however, important.
- Try to accommodate requests from journals to review revisions or resubmissions of manuscripts they have reviewed.
