All scientific articles submitted to the National Psychological Journal undergo a mandatory review procedure (evaluative analysis of a scientific article).
The journal conducts double-blind peer review of all the manuscripts received. The materials, provided for reviewing, do not indicate the names of the authors. The author is unaware of the personal data of the reviewer, including name and affiliation. Correspondence between the author and the reviewer is arranged via the e-mail address of editorial office on the journal's website.
Manuscripts of articles submitted must comply with the scope of the journal and with the rules of manuscript submission for authors.
The examination of articles determines their compliance with the basic requirements for the author's original articles in the National Psychological Journal, as presented at the website in the section "For Authors" as well as published in printed issues of the journal. Work with manuscripts is conducted in accordance with the Regulations on the manuscript examination by the National Psychological Journal. The examination is carried out within 5 days from the date of the article being received by the editorial office. If the article does not meet the requirements described in the "For Authors" section, the authors are invited to improve its design. All articles submitted to the editorial office are checked using the Anti-Plagiarism system for the presence of borrowings (see below). The Editorial Board reserves the right to reject any manuscript that editors believe does not uphold the subject, scientific level, and/or requirements for publication of the journal.
Reviewing articles. The editorial board of the journal conducts an expert evaluation of the accepted manuscript by double anonymous ("blind") peer review. All articles are sent to reviewers without specifying information about the authors (anonymously). Authors do not receive information about reviewers. Manuscripts undergo a double independent review procedure.
Articles are reviewed both by members of the editorial board and by invited reviewers who are leading experts both in Russia and abroad. The members of editorial board select two independent experts, taking into account the subject matter of the submitted materials.
The review involves independent experts with recognized authority and publications over the past 3 years in the field of knowledge to which the manuscript belongs. Experts must have an academic degree.
The authors or co-authors of the peer-reviewed work, as well as the scientific supervisors of postgraduates and postdocs or the employees of the same department as the author/co-authors cannot be selected as the reviewer. The reviewers should not be in financial or any other relationship with the authors of the article and the editors of the journal.
The review period for each article is no more than 2 months, though it can be extended at the request of the reviewer.
To support the consistency of assessments, the editors provide reviewers with a standard reviewing form. The review should contain a qualified analysis of the article, an objective, grounded assessment, and clear recommendations.
It should take into account:
Reviewers and authors are required to follow the National Psychological Journal's editorial ethics and policies:
The review procedure is confidential. Reviewers are notified that the manuscripts submitted for consideration are the intellectual property of the authors and are classified as confidential information. Reviewers are not allowed to use manuscripts for their own needs.
Violation of anonymity and confidentiality is possible only in the case of a statement on the unreliability or falsification of materials.
Unpublished data derived from submitted manuscripts cannot be used.
The reviewer is obliged to give an objective assessment of the manuscript. Personal remarks to the author(s) are unacceptable. The reviewer’s opinion is to be clearly and reasonably expressed.
The review involves three options:
Any of the three options is to be justified if chosen by the reviewer. Having obtained two positive reviews, the article is accepted for publication. The editors inform the author and indicate the terms of publication.
With one positive and one negative review, the article is sent to the third reviewer. Upon the third positive review, the article is accepted for publication.
The author is guaranteed to have an opportunity to read the text of the review. The editors send comments to the author with a proposal to take into account the recommendations when preparing a new version of the manuscript or to refute them with reason.
The article modified by the author is re-sent for review. The final decision on publication is made at the next meeting of the editorial board based on the results of reviewing and modifying the article.
If two negative reviews are received, the article is rejected. The decision to refuse publication is made at a meeting of the editorial board in accordance with the recommendations of the reviewers. An article not recommended by the decision of the editorial board for publication is not accepted for re-consideration. A notice of refusal to publish is sent to the author by e-mail.
In case of unresolvable contradictions in the evaluation of the manuscript, the editorial board has the right to send the manuscript for additional review. In conflict situations, the decision is made at a meeting of the editorial board.
All the articles that have passed the scientific review procedure and have been modified by the authors in accordance with the comments of the reviewers are subject to an expert linguistic assessment of the quality of the Russian and English languages. Editorial revision is required.
The original reviews are kept in the editorial office for five years from the date of article publication. The editors undertake to send copies of reviews to the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation upon a corresponding request. A review can also be provided at the request of expert committee in the Higher Attestation Commission.
All articles received by the editors are checked for direct borrowing in the Anti-Plagiarism system. The materials are also checked for the presence of the received texts on the Internet (through search engines). Texts in foreign languages are checked with the Similarity Check system and other similar tools.
If the editorial staff have reasons for a more detailed check, additional tools are involved to search for borrowings. Articles in which signs of technical modifications are found to artificially increase the uniqueness of the text are not published in the journal;
Excessive quoting (even properly formatted) is not welcome. The allowed volume of citations established by the editors is no more than 30% of the total volume of the article. Reviews and other articles requiring more citations for objective reasons are considered on an individual basis. Authors should also refrain from excessive self-citation.
Withdrawal (retraction) of a publication from the journal takes into account the recommendations of the Council on Ethics of Scientific Publications of the Association of Scientific Editors and Publishers "Rules for retraction (retraction) of an article from publication".