ISSN 2079-6617 (Print)
ISSN 2309-9828 (Online)
Reviewing

Reviewing

General rules for reviewing

  • Manuscripts of scientific content are to undergo a pre-publication examination procedure (reviewing). These manuscripts include:
    • all types of empirical articles;
    • all types of theoretical articles (including systematic and analytical reviews).

  • In pre-publication examination, the journal uses the double-blind review method: the author does not know who is reviewing the manuscript, the reviewer does not know who the author is. The manuscript undergoes examination only on the terms of anonymous (impersonal) submission.
  • The initiator of the examination is the Editorial Board, headed by the Editor-in-Chief of the journal. Under the guidance of the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board, the Scientific Editor appoints initially two reviewers. In controversial cases, an additional third reviewer may be involved.
  • Well-known specialists recognized in their professional communities who have published materials in topics relevant to the manuscript being reviewed over the past five years are involved in the reviewing process.
  • Both internal experts of the Editorial Board of the journal and external independent researchers can serve as reviewers.
  • If there is a conflict of interest, for example, the reviewer and the reviewed author are affiliated with the same organization, are colleagues, work together at the same department, in the same laboratory or research center, at the same faculty, or are participants of the same research project when individual results are presented in a manuscript proposed for review, the reviewer is obliged to notify the scientific editor and the Editorial Board represented by the Editor-in-Chief and refuse to conduct the examination of the manuscript.
  • The reviewer has to be polite towards the author, the text of the review is to be constructive. Personal criticism is not allowed.
  • The author has to respond reasonably and politely to the reviewer’s comments both in a separate text file, which is written in a free style, and in the text of the article itself by responding to all of the Reviewer’s comments.
  • Based on the results of the examination, the reviewer recommends, and the Scientific Editor, under the guidance of the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board, makes one of the following possible decisions:
    • “to reject”;
    • “to send for revision taking into account the comments of the reviewers”;
    • “to publish”.
  • Revision of the manuscript can be defined by the reviewer as “minimal and without subsequent re-reviewing” or as “significant with subsequent re-reviewing”.
  • In the case of inconsistent assessments of an article by reviewers, the final decision is made by the Editorial Board headed by the Editor-in-Chief.
  • The author receives the text of the manuscript with remarks, comments, recommendations of reviewers in an anonymous (impersonal) form, as well as mandatory notification of the decision made.
  • The standard reviewing period is 30 days from the moment the manuscript is assigned to the reviewer. The total review period, taking into account “minimal” revision and re-review, is 35-40 days. The total review period, taking into account “significant” revision and re-review, is 40-45 days.
  • If the Reviewer has not sent his review by the specified deadline, the article may be withdrawn from the reviewing process by this expert. If the author does not send the revised article within the specified period without a valid reason, the Editorial Board, headed by the Editor-in-Chief, has the right to reject the article.
  • All reviewers work on a voluntary basis, without additional compensation.
  • Reviews are stored at the Publishing House and at the Editorial office for 5 years.
  • Responsibility for implementing the journal’s review policy lies with the Editorial Board, headed by the Editor-in-Chief, as well as Scientific editors. Responsibility for the quality of published works lies with the Editor-in-Chief, Editorial Board, Scientific editors, reviewers and authors.
  • The editors undertake to send copies of reviews to the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation upon receipt of a corresponding request on the publication.
  • All manuscripts are submitted to the editorial office of the journal only through the manuscript submission interface in the editorial and publishing system

General procedure for assessing and reviewing a manuscript

Each submitted manuscript goes through several stages of examination and evaluation before publication.

Stage 1

All manuscripts with scientific content - research and review articles - are checked for originality of the text and the presence of incorrect borrowings. The check is carried out through the software tools of the company “Antiplagiarism VUZ”. The scientific editor analyzes the results obtained in detail and, led by the Editor-in-Chief, makes a final decision on the level of originality of the text and the presence or absence of incorrect borrowings in the manuscript. Manuscripts that do not pass through the “Antiplagiarism VUZ” system do not enter the next stages of examination.

Stage 2

Further, if the manuscript has successfully passed the originality test, the Scientific Editor determines its compliance with the general formal requirements, in particular, the following “input” points:
  • (1) subject theme of the journal;
  • (2) genre and type of the work;
  • (3) correctness of the manuscript formating, the quality of preparation of illustrative material, etc.;
  • (4) literacy, clarity, and logics of presentation in the text in accordance with the norms of the literary language;
  • (5) availability of all necessary metadata in Russian and English.

The Scientific Editor sends manuscripts that do not meet the journal's requirements for revision. If the author has finalized the article in accordance with the Guidelines for the presentation of articles adopted in the journal, has corrected errors and provided all the necessary metadata in Russian and English, the article is accepted and sent for further examination.

Stage 3

The Scientific Editor submits the manuscript, which has passed the 1st and 2nd stages of the preliminary examination, for peer review to two reviewers who are recognized in the professional community as active experts in the thematic area relevant to the work being reviewed. Before being sent for review, the manuscript is anonymized (affiliations, information about the authors, and links to the author’s own works in the text and in the bibliography are removed). In case of de-anonymization of the author by the reviewer, the latter must immediately notify the scientific editor and editorial board on this fact in order to prevent a possible conflict of interest. A conflict of interest may be due to personal relationships, beliefs, and scientific rivalry, the factors that prevent the reviewer from an impartial analysis of the contents of the manuscript as well as from making an objective decision about the publication of research results.

Review: the rules for writing

The text containing results of the examination of the manuscript content is presented by the reviewer on a review form, which, in addition to the list of questions posed, also involves a description of the shortcomings and advantages of the manuscript in a free form. The free form allows the reviewer to determine the scientific value and significance of the manuscript being reviewed in any order and degree of detail.

The review may begin with a brief summary of the manuscript. The summary will help the Scientific Editor and the author understand whether the reviewer has understood the article correctly. Otherwise, the text of the review may be based on an ambiguous or even false interpretation of the text of the work being reviewed.

After the summary, the reviewer evaluates the content of the manuscript according to the following criteria:

  • relevance of the topic;
  • novelty of the research;
  • academic objectivity;
  • correctness, reliability, and verifiability of the results obtained;
  • depth of research and completeness of material presentation;
  • assessment of the possibilities for practical use of the results obtained;
  • assessment of the prospects for further research in this direction.

The review, in a reasoned form, contains the following provisions:

  • positive qualities of the work – both the research itself and the text describing the research;
  • shortcomings in the work as such, and in the text of the manuscript;
  • characteristics of the presentation style of the article and the conclusions obtained;
  • historiographic coverage and completeness of use of the array of previous scientific literature;
  • suggestions and comments on finalizing the text of the manuscript, if the reviewer intends to further recommend the manuscript for publication;
  • final assessment of the work and recommendation to publish or reject the manuscript according to the criteria.

The review ends with final recommendations, which are formulated on the review form for the reviewer to choose from one of the following sentences:

  • (1) Publication of the manuscript without additional revision.
  • (2) Publication of the manuscript after minor revisions, which can be made by the author without re-reviewing.
  • (3) Publication of the manuscript after significant revision, which requires mandatory additional reviewing.
  • (4) Rejection of the manuscript due to significant and irreparable deficiencies.

The reviewer does not spend time on literary editing of the manuscript, but focuses on the scientific quality of the manuscript and the overall style of writing, which should be consistent with the best examples of clear and concise academic writing. If the reviewer finds that the manuscript requires linguistic correction, this is reported to the Scientific or Literary Editor. In case of disagreement between reviewers in assessing the manuscript, the final decision is made by the Editorial Board headed by the Editor-in-Chief.

If the opinions of reviewers on the same manuscript differ, a third reviewer is involved in the examination process to make an objective decision on publication or rejection of the article.

Upon completion of the review and the final decision on publication or rejection of the manuscript, the Scientific Editor should offer reviewers the following opportunities related to the procedures of open science and revealing review texts as

(a) a special form of scientific publication;

(b) a review as a specific element of scientific communication and

(c) a review as a significant part of the overall text of science:

  •  publication of the review text in the national analytical and bibliographic system “Russian Science Citation Index” on the elibrary.ru platform with an indication of authorship.

Reviewer Ethics and Moral Obligations

Reviewing is an essential component of the scientific communication system. It is the main tool that formalizes the procedure for recognizing a new scientific result in the academic community. For the author, reviewing is the only means of confirming the achievement of a new scientific result and assigning priority to the author. All scientists are readers and at the same time authors. And scientists have the opportunity to publish their own works thanks to their participation in reviewing the manuscripts of colleagues.

A reviewer who realizes being not competent enough, or not having enough qualifications or professional experience to examine the manuscript, or not having enough time to review, in any of these cases is obliged to promptly contact the Scientific Editor and the Editorial Board represented by the Editor-in-Chief with a request to be excused from reviewing a specific manuscript.

The manuscript of a scientific work that is reviewed by an expert should be treated exclusively as a confidential document. The text of the manuscript must not be discussed with outsiders who are not involved in the work of the journal. The reviewer is obliged to give only an objective assessment of the text of the manuscript. Personal criticism of the author is unacceptable.

The reviewer must clearly and reasonably express his opinion.

If reviewers, while studying a manuscript, discovers significant similarities, textual proximity, or even complete textual matches between the manuscript under reviewing and any other previously published work, they are obliged to draw the attention of the Scientific Editor to these facts of borrowing.

Any conclusion, argument, statement that appeared in a previously reviewed work, that is, was already published in a previous source work, must be confirmed through mandatory citation with a bibliographic reference link to the primary source.

Experts are strictly prohibited from reviewing manuscripts in the event of a conflict of interest in the form of scientific competition or, conversely, in the case of participation in joint scientific projects with the reviewed author or with an organization which the reviewed author is affiliated with.

You can read the full-text version of the journal’s Code of Ethics on the journal’s website in the “About the Journal” section: https://npsyj.ru/en/about/editorial-ethics/