For Reviewers

COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer-Reviewers:

Research Summit follows the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers, which set out the basic principles and standards to which all peer reviewers should adhere during the peer-review process. (https://publicationethics.org/guidance/guideline/ethical-guidelines-peer-reviewers)

Peer Reviewer Policy of Research Summit

Research Summit follows a double-blind peer-review policy in which both the reviewer and the author remain unrevealed to each other throughout the process of review.

Editorial Board of Research Summit selects and maintains a database of reviewers continuously and regularly. The reviewers are selected based on their experience and expertise. The authors can also suggest reviewers, but it is the discretion of the Editors to grant permission to reviewers suggested by the author or assign in-house reviewers to review the articles.

The reviewers are double-blinded. They are unaware of the names of authors or their affiliations.

Responsibilities of Peer Reviewers:

While reviewing the manuscript, a reviewer must consider the following:

·         Shall provide a critical but constructive review to help authors improve their works.

·         Shall provide their comments in ascribed deadlines to facilitate the review process.

·         Shall declare the potential conflicts of interest with respect to the authors or the content of a manuscript

·         Shall report possible research misconduct.

·         May suggest alternative reviewers in case they cannot review the manuscript for any reason.

·         Shall treat the manuscript as a confidential document.

·         Shall not use the work described in the manuscript in any other research.

·         Shall not pass on the assigned manuscript to another reviewer.

·         Shall ensure that the manuscript is of high quality, scientific, ethical, within the approved structure, and a valuable addition to medical and scientific knowledge. 

·         Shall write review only in the English language.

Peer review process: 

After initial screening and plagiarism check, the manuscript is sent to at least two reviewers. The reviewers are given a time of 2 weeks to review and submit their remarks about the manuscript, which are conveyed to the corresponding author who is asked to make corrections and resubmit within 2 weeks' time. The corrected manuscript is again sent to the reviewer, who will again review the corrections and provide a recommendation of either rejection or acceptance. The accepted manuscript is sent to the editors for final review for publication. Editors can make changes to bring it into uniform form.

In case the reviewer fails to submit the remarks, a reminder with a time period of 1 week is sent to the peer reviewer. If still no response is achieved, the manuscript is sent to the 3rd reviewer. The manuscript is also sent to 3rd reviewer if rejected by one reviewer before making a decision of rejection by the authors. The editors/ chief edition will make the final decision on publication.

To maintain uniformity, forms are devised for peer reviewers, which are available in the following links.

How to Review?

Consideration before becoming a reviewer

Before starting a review, the reviewer should consider the following:

·         A reviewer should be competent and have expertise in the subject matter.  

·         A reviewer should have sufficient time to complete the review within the given time frame. After 2 weeks of no response from the reviewer, the article will be sent to another reviewer.

·         A reviewer should have no conflict of interest.

Must do things for a reviewer

·         A reviewer should read the guidelines for reviewers and the Research Summit policy and must agree.

·         The Research Summit accepts articles via OJS (open journal system). Each article is assessed via a generic link. To access the paper and deliver your review, the reviewer should click on the link in the invitation email you received, which will bring the reviewer to the submission and review system.

What Should Be Checked While Reviewing a Manuscript?

·          Novelty

·          Originality

·          Scientific reliability

·          Valuable contribution to the science

·          Adding new aspects to the existing field of study

·          Ethical aspects

·          Structure of the article submitted and its relevance to the authors’ guidelines

·          References provided to substantiate the content

·          Grammar, punctuation, and spelling

·          Scientific misconduct

Structure of Review

The review should consist of the following:

·         Comments should be critical, constructive, and courteous. The comments should be explained well.

·         Check checklist should be completed. The reviewer checklist proforma is available on the website. (link) 

·         Recommendations should be given, which may be for acceptance or rejection. The acceptance may be with minor or major changes.

Benefits for Reviewer

·         Research Summit considers that reviewing an article is demanding work. To acknowledge the reviewers, Research Summit offers a 50% waiver on processing charges for a submitted article if the reviewer is the first author in a submitted manuscript.

·         Reviewer Credits is an international platform to give international credits to reviewers, and the Research Summit is registered here. A reviewer can claim credit by going to the following website: https://www.reviewercredits.com/signup/#signup-tabs|1