For Reviewers
Purpose of the Peer Review
The main purpose of the peer review is to improve the quality of the manuscript. The conscientious review is a time-consuming task but is essential to ensure the quality and forte of the scientific articles. Biophilia Insights (BI) strives to guarantee that peer review is fair, unbiased and timely. Based upon the manuscript’s importance, originality and clarity of the contents and relevance to the concern of the journal, decisions to accept or reject a manuscript are taken. Potential reviewers are identified using a broad array of resources, which includes the editorial board, personal knowledge and contacts, author suggestions and bibliographic databases. Peer Reviewers’ assessment helps the journal to decide as to whether the manuscript is suitable for publication or not. BI complies with a double-blind peer-review process in which the identities of the authors are kept discrete from the reviewers and vice-versa. To remain anonymous please avoid comments that might help the authors as hints to your identity.
Responsibility of the Peer Reviewer
The Peer Reviewer is responsible to critically read and evaluate a manuscript in the field of their specialty. The Peer Reviewer is expected to provide respectful, constructive, authentic and honest advice to authors about their manuscript submission. It is apt for the Peer Reviewer to discuss the strong point and weaknesses of the manuscript, means to improve the forte and quality of the work, and assess the importance and uniqueness of the manuscript. Please contemplate the following before peer review:
- Does the article match your field of expertise?
If you receive a manuscript for peer review that covers a topic, which does not adequately match your field of specialty, please inform the editor immediately. And also endorse a different reviewer, if any.
- Do you have time for reviewing the manuscript?
Reviewing the manuscript should be done within two weeks. We know that you will have to take out some time from your busy schedule and we appreciate your time and efforts but if you think you would not be able to complete the review within the given time duration, please inform the editor, immediately. If you have agreed to review a manuscript but unable to complete the review before the deadline, and need more time, please feel free to contact the editor.
- Are there any potential conflicts of interest?
It is solely a reviewer’s call whether to accept or deny the reviewing of the manuscript wherein there is a potential conflict of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other connections with the authors. While conflicts of interest will not disqualify you from reviewing the manuscript, it is essential to disclose all conflicts of interest to the editors before reviewing. The review process should be fair and objective. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any queries about potential conflicts of interest.
Please consider the following, while reviewing the manuscript:
Confidentiality
Please respect the confidentiality of the manuscript sent to you in confidence. The unpublished manuscript should not be discussed with colleagues or the information should not be used in your own work. If the assigned reviewer feels that a colleague is more qualified for reviewing the manuscript, yet please do not pass the manuscript without permission from the editor. You can suggest an alternate reviewer for the manuscript and your recommendation and review should also be contemplated confidential. On acceptance, the reviewer should abide by the ethics and journal guidelines for the peer-reviewing process.
Originality and quality of the content
Is the manuscript suitably original and interesting to qualify for publication? Does it complement to the addition of information? Does the manuscript obey the journal's standards? Is the research question an imperative one? To determine its novelty and relevance for the journal, it might be supportive to contemplate in terms of percentile? Is the manuscript in the upper 25% of articles in the specific field of research? You might do a quick literature survey using tools such as Scopus, PubMed or Google Scholar to see if there are any reviews of the area. If the research has been previously covered, pass on those references to the editor.
Organization, Clarity and Deliverance
Is the manuscript in line with the aims and scope of the journal? Does the manuscript convey the information of significant interest to the broad readership of the journal? Does the manuscript abide by the Authors Instructions?
Does the title, abstract, introduction, results and conclusion/discussion precisely and consistently reflecting the key point(s) of the manuscript? Is the manuscript concise, interesting, easy to understand and without repetition?
Is aim clearly mentioned, methods appropriate, scientifically apt, recent and clearly described that the work can be reproduced again? Is the manuscript concise, interesting, easy to understand and without repetition? Is aim clearly mentioned, methods appropriate, scientifically apt, recent and clearly described that the work can be reproduced again? Is the conclusion appropriately supported by the presented data?
Is the appropriate statistical analysis used, sufficiently justified and explained the statement of significance? Are results stated in the text are supported by data? Can you effortlessly substantiate them by examining figures and tables? Are all tables and figures essential, clearly labelled, well designed and readily interpretable? Are the figures and tables redundant and are recurrent in the text?
Check if the references cited in the text are the most appropriate and relevant to support the manuscript? Are citations provided for all assertations of fact not braced by the data in this manuscript? Are there any key citations missing in the manuscript?
Contemplating the length of the paper, with respect to the content. Should any part of the manuscript needs to be expanded, shortened, combined or removed? Please be precise in your advice.
Please also notify the editor citing the previous work in as much detail as possible if any potential research or publication misconduct is found, such as any indication of data fabrication or inapt manipulation, any part of manuscript already published or in press, plagiarized another publication or violation of the accepted norms in the ethical treatment of human or animal subjects .
Final Comments
Please submit your review report by the deadline to the editorial office. The recommendation by the reviewer will be highly and likely considered when the editors make the final decision, and your in-depth, and honest comment will be highly appreciated. In comments, please specify the segment intended only for the editors and the part of comments that can be returned to the author(s). Please feel free to contact the editorial office with any concerns or queries you may have.
