Writing a Review

You write your review in the Review form section of the invitation page. The form is saved as a draft while you write. The review deadline appears at the top of the form.

Parts of the form

1. In the Criteria section, give each criterion a score between 1 (poor) and the highest score of the criterion (very good).
2. In the Your recommendation section, select Accept, Minor revision, Major revision or Reject.
3. In the Comments to the author field, write the assessment to be passed on to the author. The field is required and needs at least 20 characters.
4. Optionally, fill in the Confidential comments to the editor field.
5. If you wish, upload a file with your notes in the Attachment (optional) section.

The journal sets the criteria. If the journal has not defined any, originality, methodology, clarity of presentation, use of the literature and contribution to the field are each scored out of 5.

If the editor sees fit, the author sees your comments to the author. In double-anonymous and single-anonymous review your name is not shown to the author, so do not write anything that would reveal your identity. Confidential comments to the editor are never shown to the author. Write your ethical concerns, any suspicion of plagiarism or the reasons for your recommendation in this field.

The attachment can be a PDF, DOCX or ODT file. Your name in the file properties is removed during the upload. If the editor sees fit, the attachment is shared with the author. A new file replaces the previous one.

Draft

The form saves itself while you write, and the note at the top of the form shows the save status. You can also save manually with the Save draft button.

If saving fails because of the connection or the server, the note says "Could not save — will retry". The panel tries again after a few seconds and waits a little longer before each new attempt. What you type while an attachment uploads is saved after the upload. If you move to another screen while a change is not saved, the panel saves it first and asks before leaving only if it cannot. The browser also warns when you close the tab.

Reviewer list permission

At the bottom of the form there is a permission box for the yearly reviewer acknowledgement list of the journal. The box is optional and starts unticked. If you tick it and the journal publishes the list, your name and institution appear under that year in the Our reviewers list on the journal page. The list does not say which article you reviewed.

Submitting the review

1. Press Submit review.
2. In the confirmation dialog, press the same button again.

If something is missing, the form lists what you need to complete before submitting. Pressing an item in the list takes you to that field. All criterion scores, your recommendation and the comments to the author are required. The virus scan of the attachment must also have finished.

A submitted review is locked and cannot be changed. You get a thank-you e-mail and the editors get a notification. You read your review with the View report button on the Completed tab of the Reviewing screen. To send a correction later, see Sending a Note to the Editors.

If the editor closes the round with a decision before you submit, the form can no longer be edited and a note says so.