Information for reviewers

Register as a peer reviewer

The peer reviewer's role

In essence reviewers are asked to act in a fair, objective and constructive manner which maintains quality standards and helps authors to communicate their research.

Guidance for reviewers:

Reviewers are asked to provide thoughtful and unbiased feedback to authors to ensure that the conclusions of papers are valid and supported by the data and manuscripts achieve reasonable standards of scholarliness and intelligibility. Reviewers should focus on the science of the paper.

Referencing and readability:

Authors should acknowledge previous work in the field and papers should read without unreasonable difficulty.

Suitability for the journal:

Papers should fit comfortably within the scope of the journal.

Validation of data:

In areas of genuinely novel research issues may be raised which cannot immediately be resolved and absolutely rigorous validation of data may therefore not be possible.

Time frame for completion:

Reviews should be completed within 8-10 working days.

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Submitting a review

Please submit your review through our website using the login details provided. Please do not submit your review by email.

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Conflicts of interest

You may not undertake a peer review on a submission if you are unable to do so objectively.

You may not undertake a peer review on a submission if you have, or have had in the last 12 months, any commercial associations or financial interests which may be construed as posing a conflict of interest, including but not limited to consultancies, employment, expert testimony, honoraria, retainers, stock holdings or options, and memberships on boards of for-profit organizations with a financial interest in the work under review.

If you need to declare a conflict of interest with respect to a paper you have been asked to review please inform the promptly.

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Favored reviewer program

Peer reviewers who complete a review will be offered the opportunity to join our favored reviewer program. Members of the program are offered a 25% discount on standard article processing fee for their next submission to any Libertas Academica journal.

Being admitted to the favored reviewer program is dependent on completing a review but it is not dependent on the content of the review.

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Submitting a short commentary

Peer reviewers of papers which are published will be invited to publish a short commentary on the paper they reviewed.

Short commentary papers must meet the following criteria:

600-1500 words in length
At least 1 figure or table
Commentary must be on the paper reviewed or on selected aspects of it
Submitted within 3 months of the original paper being published

Short commentaries which meet these criteria will be published free of charge.