Guidelines for reviewers
At the basis of the editorial board of the “Izvestiya” journal lies the principle of double-blind review. On the one hand, this enables a reliable selection of manuscripts with considerable originality and high quality which complies with international standards. On the other, authors of articles gather useful information and guidelines for improving their publication activity.
To help the review process the journal has made an exemplary review form. It has two basic parts: the first one concerns the editorial board, the second is meant for authors.
The first part includes:
♦ An assessment system of points with five levels for assessing: excellent, good, satisfactory, unsatisfactory and poor, and three constituent levels – respectively 5, 10 and 20 points.
♦ Assessment criteria are classified in four groups:
♦ Reviewer’s recommendations.
♦ Type of article. The editorial board decides in what rubric the manuscript can be published.
♦ Comment for scientific editors. Reviewers can identify plagiarism, conflict of interest or other unethical issues.
The second part includes:
♦ A list of detailed criteria which need to be marked for guiding authors to problematic places in the manuscript.
♦ Comment for authors. The reviewers can identify the strengths and weaknesses of the paper and develop their recommendations aimed at improving the manuscript concerning the respective criteria. There are no limits for the length of the comment; in some cases it can take 3-4 pages.
♦ Confidentiality. Reviewers must comply with the principle of confidentiality and should not comment with a third party the contents of the article and the data used in it. In case of identifying a conflict of interest the reviewer must inform the editor-in-chief.
♦ Deadline. In its editorial policy the “Izvestiya” journal strive both for high-quality reviews and reviews submitted within the set deadline. Usually reviewers have 20 days after receiving the manuscript to submit their review or inform the editorial board on time about a possible delay.