REVIEWER GUIDELINES
Reviewing a manuscript written by a fellow scientist is a privilege. It is also an exciting and enjoyable educational experience. However, it is also a time-consuming responsibility. JBiBiS and its editors, authors, and readers therefore appreciate your willingness to accept this responsibility and your dedication. We hope that these guidelines will help make your job easier.
Invitation and time to review the article
One of JBiBiS’s objectives is to complete the entire publication procedure as soon as possible in order to assure the timeliness of the published study. As a result, we encourage our reviewers to react to the editor's invitation for peer review by accepting or denying it as quickly as feasible (based on the submission title and abstract). If you decline to evaluate the paper, you can propose alternate reviewers to the editors, which will benefit the journal's work. If you agree to review the article, please provide the review report within 15 days, unless otherwise agreed upon with the Editor. In particular, if extra time is required to give a full report, you may request an extension of the deadline at any time.
Conflicts of Interest
The Journal of Bioengineering and Biochemical Sciences promotes single-blind review (the reviewer knows the author names, but the authors do not know who the reviewer is). The reviewer is obligated to keep the manuscript's content confidential until publication. This form of review is used to prevent potential conflicts of interest. Specifically, the reviewer is required to notify the journal's editorial board if they are unsure whether something represents a conflict of interest, such as: if the reviewer works at the same institution or has any other academic connection with any of the authors; if the reviewer has a close personal and family relationship with any of the authors; or if the reviewer has a rivalry or antipathy towards any of the authors, etc.
Review Reports and Rating the Manuscript
Before reading in detail the entire article as well as supplementary material if any, please consider that the authors most likely put enormous effort into conducting the research as well as writing the manuscript. Therefore, your report should critically analyze the article as a whole and avoid the use of offensive, derogatory words, and discouraging language. A report that contains the aforementioned items will not be forwarded to the authors. It is necessary to focus on providing constructive and clear comments that will help authors improve their work.
After careful reading, the reviewers must fill out a pre-prepared electronic form (see in PDF). Specifically, this form is divided into two sections: comments to the editor and comments to the authors. The reviewers provide a quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the manuscript. Quantitatively, it is necessary to assess the extent to which the manuscript meets the following criteria:
• Relevant to the journal's scope - Does the manuscript accord with the journal's aims and scope (see Aims and Scopes)?
• Clear scientific motivation – Is the scientific motivation and research question original and well-defined? Is the scientific motivation visible in the manuscript?
• The information presented is original – Based on your experience as well as available literature data, are the presented results original? Are the results interpreted appropriately and are they meaningful? Is the manuscript relevant to the field?
• Well-organized and well-written – Is the manuscript clearly and concisely written? If not, how could it be improved?
• Conclusions are sound and justified by the data – Are all conclusions justified and supported by the data?
• English is correct and understandable – Is the English language appropriate and understandable?
by assigning numerical values from 1-6 that represent:
1. Totally Agree
2. Agree
3. Neutral
4. Disagree
5. Totally Disagree
6. N/A.
In addition to the quantitative one, the reviewer also enters a qualitative evaluation of the work in the space provided for it: „Please add any comments you have for the EDITOR here“.
After comments/reports to the editor, it is necessary to send comments to the authors in the space provided for it: “Author Comments”. It is necessary to focus on providing constructive and clear comments that will help authors improve their work.• Accept in Current Form: The manuscript can be accepted without any changes.
• Minor Revisions: The article can be accepted after revision based on the reviewer's comments.
• Major Revisions: Authors are requested to submit a revised paper within the stipulated time, as well as a point-by-point response to the reviewers. The revised version will be returned to the reviewer for further comments, meaning there are two rounds of review. The acceptance of the manuscript would depend on the revisions.
• Reject: The manuscript has serious flaws and the paper may be rejected with no offer of resubmission to the journal.