Reviewing and Reviewers

 

Reviewers underline our success in achieving quality peer-review and promoting cutting edge research to serve international scientific community - The Editorial Office, ResearchersLinks 

 

Reviewer’s Invitation


All manuscript, which pass our internal initial quality controls, are assigned Editors and Editors take the responsibility to select appropriate reviewers. We ensure to obtain feedback and recommendations of at least two reviewers for each manuscript. Once reviewers are invited, there are given following three options:

1. Acceptance to Review: Reviewers are invited to provide “consent-to-review” as early as possible. They are sent two reminders 3 and 5 days post-first invitation, and title and abstract are provided to assess the suitability of contents.

2. Decline to Review: Reviewers hold rights to decline the invitation.

3. Alternative Reviewers Suggestions: In case they decline, an optional request is made to invite alternative reviewers.

4. Request for Extension: Once reviewers have accepted to review, they can request extension in case additional time is required to effectively assess the work. A maximum of 6 days are extended at one time through the online system, Manuscript Handler.

 

Reviewers are requested to assess the manuscript based upon:

1. Scientific Quality: Including novelty, importance, clarity in presentation, scientific contribution and level of language proficiency.

2. Reviewers Recommendations: Where the manuscript is accepted as is, requiring major or minor revisions or need to be rejected.

3. Reviewer’s Report: In order to provide justification of the recommendation to editor and constructive feedback to authors, reviewers are requested to provide detailed report against their recommendation.

 

Reviewer's Obligations and Responsibilities

Pre-acceptance Obligations: Reviewers are expected to only accept to review the manuscript when the scope of the research/study falls within his/her areas of expertise and that they have sufficient time to submit the report timely.

Conflict of Interest and Willingness: Reviewers shall decline to review the manuscript if there is any conflict of interest, the study is beyond the ken of knowledge or they are unable to submit the evaluation in time. They shall notify the editors at their earliest convenience and can/shall suggestive alternative reviewers.

Confidentiality: Most of our journal follow single-blinded review in which names of the reviewers are not disclosed to authors, however, reviewers are aware of authors and their affiliations. Reviewers shall only access the submitted manuscripts for evaluation of quality and peer-review process. They shall not disclose any contents (full or partial) in any media (electronic or print) before the publication of the material or without prior written consent of the authors. Any idea or concept generated through the submitted manuscript shall not be used for personal benefits or financial gain.

Objectivity: Reviewers are requested to comments on scientific contents, appropriateness of the study and value of the outcome. They are requested to not to assess the manuscripts based on race, gender, geographical origin, religion, and ethnicity and on any other personal or commercial interests.

Meeting Standards: Reviewers shall adhere to the criteria set by the journal in the online portal. Any comments on competing interests, duplication of publication, unethical practice or dubious act shall be conducted to the editor in the “confidential comments to the Editor” section in the online submission system.

Timely Review Reports: ResearchersLinks aims to provide an efficient and high quality publishing service to authors and to the scientific community. We therefore request reviewers to assist by providing review reports in a timely manner.

 

Brief Overview of the Peer-Review and Editorial Procedures


Before publication of any contents in any form, unless it is stated otherwise, are strictly and rigorously peer-reviewed by experts in the field of presented research work. Upon submission of a manuscript, our Editorial Office performs initial quality control to ensure supply of essential information, suitability of the manuscript in the scope of the journal and the level of plagiarism. If required the Editorial Office may request authors to resubmit manuscripts lacking necessary information. The handling editors arrange the peer-review process and collect at least two reviewer’s recommendations and feedback for every submitted manuscript. Unless a substantial criticism is raised or manuscript found to be of poor quality, authors are request to revise the manuscript. The revised manuscript may undergo a second round of peer-review if deemed necessary before a final decision is made mainly by the Editor in Chief of the journal. All accepted articles are copy-edited, language edited, and galley proofs are approved by authors before final publication and indexing of the manuscript.


Assessment of the Manuscript


All editors at the ResearchersLinks request reviewers to assess manuscripts based on following criteria:

Novelty of the Research: We aim to publish cutting-edge and novel findings in research papers. Reviewers are requested to assess whether the presented research advances the current understandings and adds to existing knowledge.

Importance of the Research: Since the contribution of novel findings leads to important and trend-changing future directions, we expect from reviewers to assess whether the interpreted results are significant, conclusions justified or hypothesis are clearly defined and executed.

Clarity in presentation: While research is of high quality, the presentation may mask the true message. One part of the assessment shall be to report the method of interpretation and communication with the readers.

Scientific Contribution: Reviewers are suggested to assess if the presented data is robust and support conclusion, tools used are appropriate and that other researchers will be able to reproduce these results.

Level of Language Proficiency: Reviewers shall assess if the language is clear and understandable.

 

ReserchersLinks strongly promotes and follow highest standards of publication ethics:

• Manuscripts, that are neither published nor being considered somewhere else, shall only be considered for publication.
• The contents of the manuscript shall not be plagiarised, and should purely represent authors opinions of the conducted research unless appropriately citation.
• Generally, research work should have been carried in full accordance with the acceptable ethical and animal usage standards.

It is highly recommended should report to handling editors in case any evidence of scientific misconduct and fraudulent data is presented. Additionally, if any unethical behaviour of the authors is observed, these should be reported immediately.

 

Reviewers Recommendations


Reviewers are requested to please provide an overall recommendation to the Editor in Chief who will communicate the final decision with the corresponding authors. Reviewers recommendations may include:

Accept as is: manuscript at the end of first or second rounds of revisions is accepted without any further contribution by authors.

Minor Revisions: In occasions when subtle or cosmetic revision is required by the authors, manuscripts are accepted provided that these changes are made within 15 days of communication.

Major Revisions: In cases where substantial criticism and concerns are raised by reviewers, the acceptance of the manuscript heavily depends upon the level of author’s response. Authors will be requested to provide point-by-point response to each concern raised by the reviewers. Generally, a single round of revision is requested unless Editor deems necessary. Authors are communicated major revision and allowed 15 days to resubmit the revised manuscripts. Authors can request extension in this period if full justification is provided such as experimentation are required to fully mitigate the reviewers concerns.

Reject: On grounds of serious flaws in experimental design, results and interpretations and lacking novelty, manuscript is rejected with no possibility to resubmission.

Reviewers shall notice that their recommendations are only accessible to the handling editors and authors are unable to view these recommendations.

 

Reviewer’s Reports


Following recommendations, reviewers are expected to provide justification to their recommendations by reviewer’s report, which consists of following sections:

Snapshot of the manuscript: Please describe the manuscript in 2-3 sentences.

General Comments: Please provide evidences that support your recommendations by elaborating strengths and weaknesses of the research work or contents. These should be presented in such a way that authors could respond to these comments specifically.

Specific Comments: Finally, reviewers are expected to raise specific comments against tables, figures, captions and legends. We don’t expect reviewer’s comments on formatting, styling and figure dimensions, as the Editorial Office will deal these.

 

The ResearchersLinks follow and recommend general principals and standards of ICMJE (for medical journals), CONSORT (pertaining to clinical trials), TOP (regarding data transparency and openness), PRISMA (systematic reviews and meta-analyses) and ARRIVE (reporting of animal experiments and human subjects). In order to familiarise and view in detail, we recommend exploring our Publishing Standards and Guidelines. We request reviewers to please raise any concerns that deemed deviating the guidelines defined by these agencies.

 

We recommend reviewers to further explore following references before writing a critical reviewers report:

1. COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers. Committee on Publication Ethics. Available online.

2. Hames, I. Peer Review and Manuscript Management in Scientific Journals: Guidelines for Good Practice. Wiley-Blackwell: Oxford, UK, 2007.

3. Writing a journal article review. Australian National University: Canberra, Australia, 2010. Available online.

4. Golash-Boza, T. How to write a peer review for an academic journal: Six steps from start to finish. Available online.

 

Credibility and Sharing of Reviewers Reports


As mater of fact, editors are advised to not to amend reviewers reports, and comments are collated only to avoid redundancy in comments raised by more than one reviewers. We therefore, request reviewers to use appropriate language while reviewing and composing report. For extreme criticism and points that need to be addressed to editors, please use “Confidential Comments to the Editor” section. These comments will not be included in the author’s decision letter unless editor deems appropriate. ResearchersLinks will not share reviewer’s reports with other journals and doesn’t transfer manuscript between journals.

 

Joining ResearchersLinks as Reviewers


We strongly appreciate researchers to join us as reviewer by filling a short Online Form. You need personal details, CV and list of publication to successful submit your interest.

The submitted form will then be shared with the Editor in Chief of the journal on weekly bases and if approved, reviewers are notified and added to the Reviewer’s Database of the journal.

 

Last updated on 2 January 2018

Pakistan Journal of Zoology

February

Vol. 52, Iss. 1, Pages 1-424

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