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:

• Originality;
• Structure of manuscript;
• Theory, methodology, data;
• Results and outcomes (conclusions).

♦ Reviewer’s recommendations.

• Manuscript accepted. In this case the recommendation is explained in the comment for the author.
• Manuscript accepted after minimal correction. If the manuscript meets to a high degree the assessment criteria but needs insignificant correction in some places, the respective elements in the second part are filled in and written recommendations to the author are made.
• Manuscript accepted after major correction. If the manuscript meets the requirements in general but has serious flaws concerning certain criteria, it is returned to the author for revision. In this case the reviewer marks in the second part the places with flaws and makes a detailed and well-grounded comment for the author. This type of manuscripts is reviewed again by reviewers. They assess the revision made by the author and make another recommendation.
• Manuscript to be revised and submitted for a second review. If the manuscript has arguments and originality but there are considerable flaws in its structure or theoretical part, or lacks necessary argumentation of conclusions, it is returned for revision and goes through the review process again. The reviewer fills in a detailed comment for the author in the second part
• Manuscript rejected. If the manuscript is completely unacceptable this is explained in detail in the second part. It can be useful for the author in case he decides to submit his paper to another journal and will help his future publication activity.

♦ 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.