Guidelines for Reviewers

The editorial board thank you for reviewing as a reviewer for Bulletin of the JSME. We would like to announce you for guidelines.

Consciousness of reviewer's role

The role of reviewers is extremely important in the judgment of whether a paper is to be accepted for publication or rejected. Reviewers must review any paper impartially and promptly while considering the importance of their role.

Declining to review paper of stakeholders

The reviewer must promptly decline to review a paper in the case of a conflict of interest with the authors or their paper. The reviewer must also promptly decline when he/she considers the completion of the review within the determined period to be impossible.

Ensuring objectivity of review

The review must be objective and logical from the viewpoints of usefulness for the development of mechanical engineering and industry, originality, and reliability. The reviewer must strictly refrain from subjective and illogical judgments stemming from a personal perspective or personal feelings towards the authors or their paper.

Consideration for the authors

The review comments must be logically described and expressed in a clear style so as to be easily understood by the authors. When reviewing papers, the reviewer must take great care concerning the personal character and intellectual independence of the authors, and avoid descriptions that may suggest a neglect of such considerations. The reviewer must not criticize the authors personally.

Confidentiality

The reviewer must not reveal to others the fact that he/she was requested to review a paper or part of its contents.

Prohibition of utilization of papers for own benefit

The reviewer must not utilize the contents of a paper for his or her own benefit until the paper has been published.

Report to editorial board

When the reviewer finds that the contents of a paper are or may be the same as those of a paper already published, and that the paper contains or may contain fabricated, tampered, or plagiarized data, he/she must promptly report the finding to the editorial board members.

Review report (comments)

The reviewer must write the comments logically so that the members of the Editorial Committee and author(s) can understand them. Particularly for papers judged to be rejected, the reasons must be explained explicitly and appropriately.

Guidelines for Editors

Impartial management of Editorial Committee

The Editorial Committee must strive for impartial management to achieve the purpose described in the preface of this policy. The Editorial Committee must comply with ethical principles and make a decision on the acceptance/rejection of papers impartially and promptly to maintain the quality of the journal.

The Editorial Committee must make a decision on the acceptance/rejection of the submitted papers and judge their significance regardless of the race, religion, ethnicity, gender, age, nationality, occupation, affiliation, and political conviction of the author(s).

The Editorial Committee is responsible for judging the acceptance/rejection of papers on the basis of the reports from reviewers. When the contents of a paper are considered to be unsuitable for the journal, the Editorial Committee can reject the paper without a review process.

A member of the Editorial Committee must not make a decision on the acceptance/rejection of papers of which he/she is the author or a coauthor.

If objective evidence of errors in the contents, conclusions, and references of a published paper is found, the Editorial Committee must notify the author(s), requesting a written response, and take appropriate measures, such as the publication of errata.

Selection of reviewers

The reviewers must be selected impartially. People who have a conflict of interest with the paper should not be selected as reviewers.

Confidentiality of members

The members of the Editorial Committee must not reveal to others information regarding the review (excluding the case of asking other experts for advice). Reviewers must report the names of anyone who were asked for advice regarding the review.

Objection

When the authors of a rejected paper express their dissatisfaction with the review result, the Editorial Committee must promptly examine the validity of the objection. The result of the examination is reported to the editorial executive board under the name of the Editorial Committee, and the authors are also informed. Appropriate measures must be taken when the objection is judged to be valid.

Response to report of dishonesty in research

The Editorial Committee must promptly take appropriate measures upon receiving reports of a suspicion of double submission, defamation or aspersions regarding the citation, fabrication, tampering, or plagiarization of data, and other violations of the ethical policy, from the review committee members.

Acceptance Criteria

Bulletin of the JSME is a platform for the dissemination of high-quality research in all fields of mechanical engineering. The journals of Bulletin of the JSME publish peer-reviewed original research articles, and thereby stimulate the emergence of new concepts and innovations that promote the advances of mechanical engineering in the world. To be published in the journals, manuscripts must have sufficient significance and be prepared properly, which should be examined by the reviewers and the associate editors in the peer-review process. The reviewer is therefore requested to write a clear and justifiable review report, considering the following aspects:

  • Is the manuscript within the journal’s scope?
  • Does the manuscript present new findings that are significant to mechanical engineering? Are the methods of analysis used in the manuscript sufficiently new? Do the conclusions provide insights into new concepts or areas that have a potential to open up new fields in mechanical engineering? Or, does the manuscript contain sufficiently important technological or industrial results?
  • Is the manuscript clearly and logically written in good scientific English? Is the manuscript organized properly?
  • Are the mathematical, numerical, and/or experimental analyses accurate and reliable? Are they supported by the underlying data and interpretations?
  • Are the references to the literature pertinent and adequate?
  • Does the abstract indicate the subject, objectives, methods, and equipment, together with results and conclusions?
  • Are figures and tables presented with sufficiently informative captions?
  • Is the title informative, concise, and clear?
  • Does the content of the manuscript justify its length?

Others

When reviewer finds papers containing data with experiments in connection with human subject and animals [a life and living body], reviewer confirms whether the authors explain in the paper that their researches are in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki which is the ethical principle for medical research involving human subjects as well as other ethics, laws, norms and standards. The reviewer should report to the Editorial Board if the paper lacks such a statement as this study has been approved by the institutional committee on ethics or committee on animal experiment.

Please stop reviewing when a reviewer find the technology directly related to military technologies such as weaponry itsself, and report it to associate editor or editor.

Updated: 1st January 2022

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