The role of the reviewer is vital and bears a great responsibility in ensuring the integrity of the scientific submission. Every reviewer is expected to perform manuscript evaluation in a timely, transparent, and ethical manner, following the COPE guidelines.
Reviewers should meet the following criteria:
- Hold no conflicts of interest with any of the authors;
- Should not have published together with the authors in the last three years;
- Have high experience in the field of the submitted paper;
We have listed some general instructions regarding the review report. To begin with, please consider the following guidelines:
- Read the whole article as well as the supplementary material, if there is any, paying close attention to the figures, tables, data, and methods.
- Your report should critically analyze the article, but also specific sections and the key concepts presented in the article.
- Please ensure your comments are detailed so that the authors may correctly understand and address the points you raise.
Review reports should contain a brief summary (one short paragraph) outlining the aim of the paper, its main contributions and strengths. Reviewer should highlight areas of weakness, the testability of the hypothesis, methodological inaccuracies, missing controls, etc. The reports should then contain specific comments referring to line numbers, tables, or figures that point out inaccuracies within the text or sentences that are unclear. These comments should also focus on the scientific content.
General questions to help guide your review report for research articles:
- Is the manuscript clear, relevant for the field, and presented in a well-structured manner?
- Are the cited references mostly recent publications (within the last 5-10 years) and relevant?
- Is the manuscript scientifically sound and is the experimental design appropriate to test the hypothesis?
- Are the manuscript’s results reproducible based on the details given in the methods section?
- Are the figures/tables appropriate? Do they properly show the data? Are they easy to interpret and understand? Is the data interpreted appropriately and consistently throughout the manuscript?
- Are the conclusions consistent with the evidence and arguments presented?
Overall Recommendation
- Accept in Present Form: The paper can be accepted without any further changes.
- Accept after Minor Revisions: The paper can be accepted after revision based on the reviewer’s comments.
- Reconsider after Major Revisions: The acceptance of the manuscript would depend on the revisions. The author needs to provide a point-by-point response or provide a rebuttal if some of the reviewer’s comments cannot be revised.
- Reject: The article has serious flaws, makes no original contribution, and the paper may be rejected.
Reviewers Board
The Reviewers Board (RB) is made up of experienced researchers whose main responsibility is to support journals regularly and actively by providing high-quality, rigorous, and transparent review reports for submitted manuscripts within their area of expertise. RB allows JAHC to provide fast and rigorous peer review. The initial term is for 1 year which can be renewed or terminated. Membership involves the same responsibilities and benefits as regular reviewers, with the addition of:
- RB Members must review a minimum of 3 manuscripts per year. If the reviewer should be unable to provide a report when invited, they are expected to suggest alternative potential reviewers.
- RB Members are entitled to receive an RB certificate.
- RB Members are announced on the journal website.
JAHC is actively looking for volunteers to review manuscripts. To become part of this program, you must fulfill the criteria outlined in the paragraph entitled “For Reviewers”. To become a member of this program, please submit your application to: direzione.editoriale@jahc.it . Your application will be reviewed by our internal staff, who will check if your background suits the scope of the journal as well as any potential ethical issues.
JAHC allows reviewers to deposit their review activities into an ORCID iD or Publons.