Guidelines For Reviewers

Reviewers must ensure

  • That they adhere to the stipulated deadline. If this is not possible, the Journal should be alerted without delay.
  • That they have no conflict/s of interest (with the author/s, institution/s, funding source/s).
  • That they treat the review process with the strictest confidentiality.

Writing a Report

The purpose of the referee report is to provide the editors with the information that they need to reach a decision. The report should also advise the authors on how to strengthen their manuscript revision is an option. Referees are asked to complete a summary sheet for the submission of comments to the editor and the authors. This report should be divide as:

Comments for the authors

These should be positive and impartial, but critical. A negative report should also explain the manuscript weaknesses.  Positive reports should explain the reasons the reasons for acceptance. The report should include:

  • A summary of the findings and the referee’s overall impressions, as well as highlighting any major shortcomings.
  • Specific comments, which may be broken down into major and minor issues. The report should continue to assess:
  • What are the claims made and what is their significance?
  • Are the claims discussed in the context of extant literature?
  • What could be done to strengthen the paper?
  • How the manuscript might be shortened?
  • If the manuscript is unacceptable in its present form, could it be resubmitted after suggested changes.
  • Title suitability.
  • Would the reviewer like to re-review the eventual revised version.

The manuscript should be rated according to:

  1. Technical quality (including statistical analysis).
  2. Strength of the evidence for the conclusions drawn.
  3. Novelty.
  4. Medical impact.

Comments for the editors

The referees are asked to keep the above points in mind and to address any confidential matters in this section to the editors.

The referees will also be asked to rate overall:

  • Accept (virtually) as is.
  • Accept with minor changes
  • Accept with major changes
  • Reject and resubmit
  • Flat rejection

Editing Referee Reports

The journal hardly ever suppresses or modifies referee reports, but may, on rare occasions edit a report in which the referee has made an inadvertent but clear and factual mistake. The journal will also remove any comments that may reveal confidential information. In cases where the overall recommendation or opinion conflicts with the comments to the authors, the referee will be asked to rephrase the relevant section(s) of the report.