Journal of Emergency Practice and Trauma (JEPT) Guide for Reviewers
Peer review is the system for evaluating the quality, validity, and relevance of scholarly research. The process aims to provide authors with constructive feedback from relevant experts which they can use to make improvements to their work, thus ensuring it is of the highest standard possible. JEPT adheres to a double-blind peer-review process that is rapid, fair, and ensures a high quality of articles published. In so doing, JEPT needs reviewers who can provide insightful and helpful comments on submitted manuscripts with a turnaround time of about 8-12 weeks. We hope that the information provided here will help making your work easier.
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Reviewers' and authors' identities are kept confidential.
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The existence of a submitted manuscript is not revealed to anyone other than the reviewers and editorial staff.
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Reviewers are required to keep manuscripts and their information confidential.
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They should not use knowledge of the manuscript before its publication for their personal interests.
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The reviewers' comments should be constructive, honest, and polite.
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Reviewers should declare their potential conflicts of interest and decline review if one exists. Knowing the author(s) should not affect their comments and decision.
Purpose and Rewards of Reviewers
In appreciation of your invaluable service to the JEPT, your name will be included in a list we publish on the webpage of reviewers who have reviewed for the JEPT. Also, reviewers who consistently exhibit excellent reviews and respond promptly to the editorial requests are considered for invitation to the Editorial Board.
Comments to the reviewers
- Special comments on the manuscripts could be sent to editors if they are inappropriate to be declared to authors.
- The comments sent to editors should be in consistency level with those sent to authors.
- A review in dedicated time will benefit the entire scientific community.
- The manuscripts should be reviewed impartially and objectively.
- Reviewers should decline refereeing the manuscripts that is in the area of interest of the reviewer, is the financial interest of him or her, is a field that reviewer is now working on, or if the reviewer has contacted the author recently. This information is uttered in the “request for review” e-mail sent to reviewer; otherwise after receiving the manuscript, the reviewer should inform the editor in order to inhibit subjective reviewing.
- Information in manuscripts should be held confidential till the time of publication.
- Reviewers should not use unpublished information in manuscripts as a resource in their researches.
- In the case of accepting reviewing a manuscript, this is a request of the reviewers to re-review the future revisions of the manuscript. Of course, reviewing revisions will be handled by editorial board as it is possible in order to restrict extra burden on reviewers.
- Identity of reviewers should not be declared to authors.
Reviewers’ Responsibilities
- Reviewing multiple versions of a manuscript as necessary
- Providing all required information within established deadlines
- Making recommendations to the editor regarding the suitability of the manuscript for publication in the journal
- Declaring to the editor any potential conflicts of interest with respect to the authors or the content of a manuscript you are asked to review
- Reporting possible research misconducts
- Suggesting alternative reviewers in case you cannot review the manuscript for any reasons
- Treating the manuscript as a confidential document
- Not making any use of the work described in the manuscript
- Not communicating directly with authors, if somehow you identify the authors
- Not identifying yourself to authors
- Not passing on the assigned manuscript to another reviewer
- Ensuring that the manuscript is of high quality and original work
- Informing the editor if you find the assigned manuscript is under consideration in any other publication to your knowledge
- Writing review report in English only
- Authoring a commentary for publication related to the reviewed manuscript
What Should be Checked While Reviewing a Manuscript?
- Novelty
- Scientific reliability
- Originality
- Valuable contribution to the science
- Adding new aspects to the existed field of study
- Ethical aspects
- Structure of the article submitted and its relevance to authors’ guidelines
- References provided to substantiate the content
- Grammar, punctuation and spelling
- Scientific misconduct
What if you are unable to review?
Sometimes you will be asked to review a paper when you do not have sufficient time available. In this situation, you should make the editorial office aware that you are unavailable as soon as possible. It is very helpful if you are able to recommend an alternative expert or someone whose opinion you trust.
If you are unable to complete your report on a paper in the agreed time-frame required by the journal, please inform the editorial office as soon as possible so that the refereeing procedure is not delayed.
Make the editors aware of any potential conflicts of interest that may affect the paper under review.
Manuscripts selected for peer review will be according to the specific criteria including the research reporting guidelines for different study designs; including CONSORT for randomized trials, STROBE for observational studies, PRISMA for systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and STARD for studies of diagnostic accuracy.
How to Review a Manuscript via the JEPT Portal?
As the first step in the review process, we send “request for review” email to the reviewers and provide them with the abstract of manuscript.
They will then register via the JEPT portal and get a Username and Password.
To complete the review process and to get access to the full text of manuscript, reviewers should login via the JEPT portal then follow the instructions provided in below:
Please go to your profile--Reviewer Section--Pending Assignments--Click on the manuscript ID--Click on Manuscript Evaluation Form--Fill the form/attach the review file--Make the decision (Reviewer Recommendation) as to Accept, Minor Revisions, Major Revisions, Re-Submit or Reject--Push "Send to Editor" button.
Reviewer Guidelines
To improve the quality of peer review process, reviewers can consider these checklists:
- General Checklist for all types of Studies
- STROBE Checklist for CROSS-SECTIONAL studies | more info
- STROBE Checklist for CASE CONTROL studies | more info
- STROBE Checklist for COHORT Studies | more info
- STROBE Checklist for Observational studies | more info
- CONSORT Checklist for RANDOMIZED TRIALS | more info
- PRISMA Checklist for Systematic reviews and META ANALYSIS | more info
- Critical Appraisal of META ANALYSIS
- MOOSE Checklist for META ANALYSIS
- STARD Checklist for DIAGNOSTIC ACCURACY | more info
- TREND Checklist for BEHAVIORAL and Public Health Interventions | more info
- REMARK Checklist for Tumor Marker Prognostic Studies | more info
- COREQ Checklist for Qualitative Research: Interviews and Focus Groups | more info
- CARE Checklist for CASE REPORTS | more info
- AGREE Checklist for Clinical Practice GUIDELINES | more info
We are always very grateful for the contribution made to our journals by our referees and would be pleased to hear any comments or suggestions on our current peer-review procedures.