The evaluation of scientific articles submitted to AAM should be critical, independent and unbiased. The evaluation should take into account the respect of ethical guidelines and research subject privacy rights as well as deal with potential conflicts of interest for the parties involved in the work.
After the online submission of the paper by the author, the administrator checks that the submitted manuscript format agrees with the journal guidelines before forwarding to the Editor-in-chief (EIC). The EIC makes a quick decision as to whether the manuscript is worth publishing in journal, and then refers the paper to an Editorial Board member (Associate Editor) on the basis of his relative expertise on the topic. The Associate Editor then assigns at least 3 reviewers who should be knowledgeable on the subject under consideration in the paper. The reviewers are expected to critically analyze the manuscript and report their evaluation of the work to the Associate Editor within 3 weeks. Based on this assessment, the Associate Editor makes a recommendation to the EIC who discusses the final decision with the Editorial Board (acceptation with or without minor revision, necessity of a major revision or rejection). During the whole process, the authors are not aware of the identity of the Associate Editor and the reviewers. In return, the reviewers do not know the identity of the authors.
The referee is expected to provide his opinion on 2 types of issues:
- Originality and scientific quality of the article
- Interest of the content to the readership
Referees are encouraged to read the AAM authors guidelines prior to evaluating the papers because authors are normally asked to write on the basis of these guidelines.
An evaluation report on the article should be sent to the Editor including a courteously written section for comments to the authors. This report should generally consist of 4 sections as follows:
- A short summary of the paper in maximum 4 sentences
- General comments on the form (grammar, spelling, style, length of the manuscript) as well as on the content of the article. The referee is expected to provide the importance of the work for the general public and to underline its major and minor weaknesses. Answering the following questions could help the referee to articulate general comments in the evaluation report on the manuscript:
- Is the scientific content correct and interesting?
- Is the article original and informative?
- Is the manuscript too long? If yes, is there any risk of clarity loss in reducing the length of the manuscript?
- Can the article content be understood by both specialists and non-specialists?
- In his final recommendation to the editor, the referee should select one of the following options on the outcome of the manuscript:
- Acceptation without revision
- Acceptation with minor revision
- Necessity of a major revision before reevaluation of the manuscript
- Rejection of the manuscript
- Specific comments, questions and suggestions to authors should be sufficiently clear and detailed for a better understanding of the referee’s opinions.
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