Peer-review

Peer review exists to ensure that journal publish good science which is of benefit to entire scientific community.
Sometimes authors find the peer-review process intimidating because it can lead to the rejection of their manuscript. Keep in mind that revisions and improvement are part of the publication process and actually help raise the quality of your manuscript.

Peer review is a positive process

Peer review is an integral part of scientific publishing that confirms the validity of the science reported. Peer reviewers are experts who volunteer their time to help improve the journal manuscripts they review—they offer authors free advice.

Through the peer-review process, manuscripts should become:

• More robust: Peer reviewers may point out gaps in your paper that require more explanation or additional experiments.
• Easier to read: If parts of your paper are difficult to understand, reviewers can tell you so that you can fix them. After all, if an expert cannot understand what you have done, it is unlikely that a reader in a different field will understand.
• More useful: Peer reviewers also consider the importance of your paper to others in your field and can make suggestions to improve or better highlight this to readers.
• Of course, in addition to offering authors advice, another important purpose of peer review is to make sure that the manuscripts published in the journal are of the correct quality for the journal’s aims.

ESSSENC Journal Peer – review process is double blind meaning that the author does not know the identity of the reviewer and same with the reviewer.

At least two review reports are collected for each submitted article. Suggestions of reviewers can be made by the academic editor during pre-check.

The following checks are applied to all reviewers:

• That they hold a PhD (exceptions are made in some fields, e.g. medicine);
• They must have recent publications in the field of the submitted paper;

Reviewers are given two weeks to write their review. For the review of a revised manuscript, reviewers are asked to provide their report within three days. In both cases, extensions can be granted on request. A paper can only be accepted for publication by an academic editor.

The peer review process can be broadly summarized into 10 steps, although these steps can vary slightly between journals. Explore what’s involved, below.

Editor Feedback: “Reviewers should remember that they are representing the readers of the journal. Will the readers of this particular journal find this informative and useful?”

1. Submission of Paper

The corresponding or submitting author submits the paper to the journal. This is usually via ESSENCE online submission system or through email.

2. Editorial Office Assessment

The journal go through the paper’s composition and arrangement against the Author Guidelines of Journal to make sure it includes the required sections and stylizations. The quality of the paper is not assessed at this point.

3. Appraisal by the Editor-in-Chief (EIC)/Executive Editor (EE)

The EIC/EE checks that the paper is appropriate for the journal and is sufficiently original and interesting. If not, the paper may be rejected without being reviewed any further.

4. EIC/EE Assigns an Associate Editor (AE)

Some journals have Associate Editors who handle the peer review. If they do, they would be assigned at this stage.

5. Invitation to Reviewers

The handling editor sends invitations to individuals he or she believes would be appropriate reviewers. As responses are received, further invitations are issued, if necessary, until the required number of acceptances is obtained.

6. Response to Invitations

Potential reviewers consider the invitation against their own expertise, conflicts of interest and availability. They then accept or decline. If possible, when declining, they might also suggest alternative reviewers.

7. Review is Conducted

The reviewer sets time aside to read the paper several times. The first read is used to form an initial impression of the work. If major problems are found at this stage, the reviewer may feel comfortable rejecting the paper without further work. Otherwise they will read the paper several more times, taking notes so as to build a detailed point-by-point review. The review is then submitted to the journal, with a recommendation to accept or reject it – or else with a request for revision (usually flagged as either major or minor) before it is reconsidered.

8. Journal Evaluates the Reviews

The handling editor considers all the returned reviews before making an overall decision. If the reviews differ widely, the editor may invite an additional reviewer so as to get an extra opinion before making a decision.

9. The Decision is Communicated

The editor sends a decision email to the author including any relevant reviewer comments. Whether the comments are anonymous or not will depend on the type of peer review that the journal operates.

10. Next Steps

If accepted, the paper is sent to production. If the article is rejected or sent back for either major or minor revision, the handling editor should include constructive comments from the reviewers to help the author improve the article At this point, reviewers should also be sent an email or letter letting them know the outcome of their review. If the paper was sent back for revision, the reviewers should expect to receive a new version, unless they have opted out of further participation. However, where only minor changes were requested this follow-up review might be done by the handling editor.

Note: ESSENCE Journal follows the basic review process of Springer and Wiley Publications to ensure the quality in the review process at international level.

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