Guidelines for Reviewers

Dear Prospective Reviewer:

Given your expertise, we invite you to be a reviewer of articles submitted to the journal Strani jezici. Your assistance in the review process will help us select quality articles for publication. Please accept our invitation if you have the time to provide a high-quality review and do not have any potential conflict of interest.

It is essential that you respond to our invitation promptly in order not to slow down the review process.

If you decide to decline our invitation, it would be helpful if you could provide suggestions for alternative reviewers.

If you accept, please first read the manuscript once all the way through and give yourself time to think about it from your own expert perspective.

We would like to remind you that, according to the COPE Ethical guidelines for peer reviewers, the review process is strictly confidential. This means that, regardless of your decision, during and after the review process, you must not share information about the manuscript or other materials and data you receive without the consent of the Editor-in-Chief or authors.

Before you write the review, make sure you know what the focus of the journal Strani jezici is, what kind of articles the journal publishes, and what specific reviewing criteria you need to apply while reviewing the manuscript.

The following checkpoints should help you to write a review report that would help the Editor make a valid and objective decision on whether to accept or reject the manuscript.

  • Give specific comments and suggestions, including those about scientific/professional aspects of the manuscript (originality, theoretical background, methodology, presentation and interpretation of results, discussion, conclusion, limitations, implications).
  • The questions provided on the review form serve only as a reminder for the reviewer to reflecting on different aspects and components of the manuscript.
  • If you have any ethical concerns (regarding, for example, plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, inappropriate data manipulation, unethical conduct with human subjects, copyright issues, etc.), raise your suspicions with the Editor-in-Chief, providing as much detail as possible. See the Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement for more information.

When writing the review report, be aware of the following:

  • Your comments should be courteous, objective, and constructive. It is very important that you explain your comments in such a way that both the authors and the Editor-in-Chief can easily follow your line of argument and your suggestions for improvement. They should not include any personal details, including your name.
  • If you suggest that the authors include citations to your (or your associates’) work, this must be for genuine scientific reasons.
  • Sometimes reviewers, editors, and others involved in the publishing process are under the negative influence of a so-called unconscious bias.  Thus, please try to recognize and suppress any unconscious bias.

When reviewing the manuscript, you should carefully consider the following categories that Strani jezici applies for (A) classification and (B) recommendations:

A) Categories

  • Original research article: the results of an original unpublished study are presented in such a way that the study can be replicated or its results verified.
  • Preliminary communication: the results of an original unpublished (un)finished study are presented or some new scientific insights are announced.
  • State-of-the-art article: a critical review of current knowledge in some field is given in such a way that the article can be recognized as the author’s original contribution to the field.
  • Professional paper: a useful contribution to the profession is provided through description of the application of some theoretical knowledge or research results in the author’s own professional life.

B) Recommendation categories

The manuscript can be accepted  in its present form.
The manuscript can be accepted after minor revisions (suggestions provided in the review and/or in the manuscript).
The manuscript can be accepted after major revisions (suggestions provided in the review and/or in the manuscript).
The manuscript must be revised (suggestions provided in the review and/or in the manuscript) and resubmitted for another review
The manuscript should be rejected

 

The Editor-in-Chief makes the final decision on whether to accept or reject an manuscript. She will consider the views of two independent reviewers and may ask for a third review if necessary before making the final decision. If you are interested in the Editor-in-Chief’s final decision, you can contact her to find out whether the article was accepted or rejected.

Apart from communicating with reviewers through electronic means, the Editor-in-Chief and her editorial team do not take part in the reviewing process.

The Review form is available below, the same review form appears in the COMET system. The deadline for submitting a review is 30 days after receipt of the manuscript. If, for any reason, you will be unable to meet this timeline, please notify the editor as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely,

The Editorial Board

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º The Comet online submission system:
http://journal.sdewes.org/str-jez