GUIDELINES FOR REVIEWERS

Manuscripts submitted for publication in Whites Science Journals are subjected to single blind peer-review, except for a selected number of journals where double blind review is followed. Single blind reviewing maintains the identity of the reviewers, not disclosing their names to the authors. The anonymity of reviewers ensures objective and unbiased assessment of the manuscript by reviewers.

Reviewers are advised to consider the following important aspects of a manuscript when conducting the review.

1. Reporting of Original Results

The results reported in the manuscript must be original and authentic work of the authors. They should be devoid of any plagiarism and the material should not have been published earlier. Studies which report some reproduced results, for example a new clinical trial, may also be considered for publication.

2. Experiments and Analyses

Experiments and other analyses should meet the recognized technical standards and must be described systematically. The research presented in a manuscript should facilitate in reaching accurate conclusions from the statistics. Methods and experiments as well as reagents should be documented in detail.

3. Interpretation of Results:

Authors should present and interpret the results and conclusions in an appropriate and comprehensive manner, clearly explaining the results and outcomes of their study. Incomplete interpretation of results may result in rejection of the manuscript.

4. Language of Composition

The manuscript should be written in English in a clear, direct and active style, free from grammatical errors and other linguistic inconsistencies. All pages should be numbered sequentially, facilitating the reviewing and editing of the manuscript. Authors are advised to contact native speakers for language and grammatical consistency.

5. Experiments involving Humans and Animals:

The research must meet the highest applicable international standards of the ethics of experimentation and research integrity. A brief description on ethical guidelines is given in the ‘Instructions for Authors’ of every journal published by Whites Science.

6. Reporting guidelines (e.g. CONSORT, MIAME, STROBE, EQUATOR) and Community Standards for Data

The manuscript should adhere to suitable reporting guidelines (e.g. CONSORT, MIAME, STROBE, EQUATOR) and community standards for data availability. Whites Science seeks to disseminate research and therefore stipulates that the public deposition of data is as per the followed standards (for example gene sequences, microarray expression data, and structural studies). Other similar standards that may be applicable should also be followed.

7. Manuscript Evaluation

Evaluation of manuscripts is carried out by the journal’s Editors and the invited external peer reviewers according to the following procedures.

EDITORIAL PROCESS

The editorial process and peer-review workflow for each journal are taken care of by a team of Senior Editors and Editorial Advisory Board Members (EABMs) who have expertise in their specific fields. The services of Senior Editors and Editorial Advisory Board Members are sought through invitations to organize and conduct the peer-review of a submitted manuscript, keeping in view the scope of the manuscript and the expertise of Editors in view. Manuscripts are forwarded for evaluation to Editors and Editorial Board Members as well as external reviewers to check if the research work presented in the manuscript (a) falls within the scope of the journal and (b) meets the editorial criteria of Whites Science Publishers in terms of originality and quality. Editors/Editorial Board Members may recommend the acceptance or rejection of a manuscript by conducting the peer review themselves, based on their own knowledge and experience, or they may take assistance and advice from other experts in the field.

After review of the manuscript by at least two independent experts, in addition to the views of the Editor, the decision is relayed to the authors, which may be categorized as:

• Accept without changes
• Revisions Required
• Reject

SELECTION OF REVIEWERS

The Editor-in-Chief (EiC) and Senior Editors of a journal have the right to select reviewers for a particular manuscript considering the knowledge and experience of the reviewers.

Before sending the manuscripts to a reviewer, Whites Science seeks consent from potential reviewers about their availability and willingness for review. The correspondence between the editorial office of the journal and reviewers is kept confidential.

PURPOSE OF A REVIEW

A review report provides the Editor-in-Chief/Senior Editor with an expert opinion on the quality of the manuscript under consideration. It also supplies authors with explicit feedback on how to improve their papers to make them acceptable for publication in the journal. Although confidential comments to the editors are not relayed to authors, any remarks that may help improve the quality of the manuscript are forwarded to the authors for their consideration. A good review report answers the following important areas:

• Is the work novel and of high standards?
• What are the main findings of the paper? Is relevant work of other authors in the field appropriately acknowledged and references given to the previous literature?
• Do the experimental data support the declarations? If not, what other evidence may prove fruitful?
• What kind of readers would benefit from the manuscript and why?
• In what further directions would it be feasible to take the current research?

IMPORTANT POINTS TO CONSIDER

Reviewers are expected to provide advice on the following points in their review reports:

• Is the manuscript written comprehensively enough to be understandable? If not, how could it be improved?
• Have adequate proofs been provided for the declarations?
• Have the authors addressed the previous findings fairly?
• Does the paper offer enough details of its methodology to reproduce the experiments?
• Whites Science encourages authors to publish detailed protocols as supporting information online. Do any particular methods used in the manuscript warrant such a protocol?

PRIVACY STATEMENT

The peer-review of a manuscript is a confidential process. Reviewers should keep the whole process completely confidential. They should consult the EiC/Senior Editor and obtain permission before consulting another colleague for help in the peer-review of the submitted manuscript.

Reviewers should not disclose any information whatsoever to anyone before publication of the manuscript.

PROMPT REVIEW

The reviewers should provide their reports in a timely fashion since a prompt review leads to the timely publication of a manuscript which is beneficial not only for the authors but for the scientific community as well.

CHANGES IN REVIEW REPORTS

The Editorial staff relays the comments of the reviewers on behalf of the Editor-in-Chief. The review reports are edited by Editor-in-Chief/Handling Editor if the comments contain confidential information or these are written in a language not suitable for scholarly communication. Reviewers should include such comments in the confidential section of the review form, which is intended to be read by the editors only.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

Whites Science respects requests not to have the manuscripts peer-reviewed by those experts who may have a competing interest with the author(s) of a submitted manuscript. It is not possible for Editors to be aware of all competing interests; we therefore expect that reviewers would inform the Editor-in-Chief if they notice any potential competing interest during the course of review of a manuscript. Moreover, the reviewers are expected to inform the Editors or editorial office of the journal if they have a conflict of interest in carrying out a review of a manuscript submitted by any author/contributor of the manuscript.