Guidelines for Reviewers

All the manuscripts submitted to PJDOL undergo a peer-review process. Peer review process involves the constructive feedback on the manuscript by experts to improve its quality. The reviewers must keep in view following guidelines while reviewing a manuscript:

  1. Quality of a Manuscript: The reviewer is expected to evaluate a manuscript while keeping in mind its originality, contribution to field of knowledge, technical quality, clarity of presentation and depth of the research problem. However, any comment made on the quality of manuscript must be relevant, brief and based on valid academic or technical grounds. Personal criticism must be avoided during the review process. The reviewer should not review it for rewriting it in his/her own preferred style, if a manuscript is basically sound and clear.
  2. Confidentiality of Manuscript: The manuscript sent to a reviewer is an unpublished work of the researcher so it should be ensured that the review process is confidential. Reviewer should not share any information about the manuscript with any other party. Details of the manuscript and the review process must be kept confidential after the review process is completed.
  3. Conflict of Interest: Conflict of interest refers to a situation in which the personal or professional interests of reviewer actually or potentially affects his/her task of review process. A reviewer, if finds himself/herself in a conflict of interest regarding a manuscript, must clearly declare it to the editorial board about his/her inability to review the manuscript. For instance, a reviewer, if receives a paper of his/her colleague or an intellectual opponent, must notify to the editorial board about it.
  4. Plagiarism/Violation of Copyright: A reviewer, if considers that a manuscript contains a plagiarism or might breach copyrights of another party, must immediately inform editorial board about it alongwith necessary evidence(s).
  5. Time Duration for Review Process: A reviewer is expected to complete the review process for a manuscript within a maximum period of two months. It will help the journal to provide timely feedback to the author.