Reviewer Guidelines

 

The Responsibility of the Peer Reviewer

The peer reviewer is responsible for critically reading and evaluating a manuscript in their specialty field, and then providing respectful, constructive, and honest feedback to authors about their submission. It is appropriate for the Peer Reviewer to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the article, ways to improve the strength and quality of the work and evaluate the relevance and originality of the manuscript allows the editor to assess the paper’s suitability for publication in the journal.

 

Why the review is important?

By acting as a reviewer, you can:

  1. Help authors improve their papers by providing your professional expertise. Gain a sense of prestige in being consulted as an expert!
  2. Play an important role in maintaining a good, rigorous peer-review process.
  3. Expand your awareness of the current research emerging within your field.
  4. Build relationships and improve your academic and professional profile. Although often anonymous, the review process can enable a discussion (between author, reviewer, and editor) around a research field or topic.
  5. Improve your own writing skills. Reviewing others work can make it easier to spot commons errors in your own.

 

Before Reviewing

Please consider the following:

  1. Visit the Indonesian Journal of Chemical Science homepage (to get a sense of the journal’s published content and house style. This will help you in deciding whether the paper being reviewed is suitable for the journal or not.
  2. Does the article you are being asked to review match your expertise? If you receive a manuscript that covers a topic that does not sufficiently match your area of expertise, please notify the editor as soon as possible. Please feel free to recommend alternate reviewer.
  3. Do you have time to review the paper? Finished reviews of an article should be completed within one months. If you do not think you can complete the review within this time frame, please let the editor know and if possible, suggest an alternate reviewer. If you have agreed to review a paper but will no longer be able to finish the work before the deadline, please contact the editor as soon as possible.
  4. Are there any potential conflicts of interests? While conflicts of interest will not disqualify you from reviewing the manuscript, it is important to disclose all conflicts of interest to the editors before reviewing. If you have any questions about potential conflicts of interests, please do not hesitate to contact the receiving editorial office.

 

The Review

When reviewing the article, please keep the following in mind:

  1. Refer to the Instructions for Authors to check if the paper meets the submission criteria of the journal (e.g. length, scope, and presentation).
  2. Content Quality and Originality,
  3. Organization and Clarity

 

Questions to consider

The main factors you should provide advice on as a reviewer are the originality, presentation, relevance, and significance of the manuscript’s subject matter to the readership of the journal.

Questions to have in mind when reading the manuscript (in no particular order):

 

 

Provide detailed comments

 

Final Comments

 

Ethical Issues:

 

Make a recommendation

Once you’ve read the paper and have assessed its quality, you need to make a recommendation to the editor regarding publication.  The specific decision types used by a journal will vary but the key decisions are: