At the end of the review form you choose one of five recommendations. They are advice to the editor, not decisions: the editor weighs your recommendation together with your report, the other reports, and their own reading of the manuscript, and the editor alone decides. Choose the option that matches the report you have written. A recommendation of acceptance under a list of essential revisions, or a rejection supported only by minor points, leaves the editor unable to use your advice.
The five options
| Recommendation | What it means at Peer Academics | What normally follows |
|---|---|---|
| Accept | The manuscript is publishable as it stands. Nothing beyond copyediting, proofreading, and formatting remains. You have no essential revisions to list. | If the other reviewers agree, the editor accepts the manuscript and it moves to copyediting and typesetting. Accept is not a courtesy: use it only if you would defend publication of the manuscript exactly as it stands. |
| Minor Revisions | The work is sound and the conclusions are supported. What remains is bounded and can be done from material the authors already hold: clarifying an argument, correcting a table, adding a limitation, tightening the literature, fixing references. No new data, sources, or analysis are needed. | The editor asks for a revision with a point-by-point response, normally within four weeks, and usually judges the result without returning it to reviewers. Say in your confidential comments if you wish to see it again. |
| Major Revisions | The question and the material are worth publishing, but the manuscript does not yet support its claims. Substantial work is required — reanalysis, additional sources or cases, a reworked argument, a restructured article — and you can state what that work is. | The editor requests a revised manuscript, normally within eight weeks, and returns it for a second round of review, usually to the same reviewers. Acceptance is not promised. |
| Resubmit for Review | There is a worthwhile contribution here, but not in this manuscript. The work needed goes beyond revision — a study rebuilt on a different design, a sample or corpus that must be collected, an article written again from the beginning — and its result cannot be predicted from what you have read. | The editor closes the present submission and invites a new one. The resubmission is treated as a fresh manuscript: new record, new screening, new review, no priority from the earlier attempt. The authors are told what the invitation depends on. |
| Decline | The manuscript should not be published by this journal, and further work by the authors on this version would not change that. Typical grounds: the claims are not supported by evidence that could realistically be obtained, the method cannot answer the question, the contribution is not discernible, the work is outside the journal's scope, or the ethical basis is unsound. | The editor declines the submission and tells the authors why. They may submit different work in future, and may appeal the decision once, as set out in Complaints and Appeals. |
Major Revisions or Resubmit for Review?
The distinction is whether the current manuscript can be repaired. If you can list the changes that would make this article publishable, recommend Major Revisions. If what you would have to ask for is a different piece of work, and you cannot say in advance whether the result would succeed, recommend Resubmit for Review. Do not use Major Revisions as a soft rejection: it commits the authors to months of work and the journal to a second round, and it is unfair if you have already concluded that nothing they do will convince you. In that case recommend Decline and say why.
If the reviewers disagree
Divergent recommendations are normal and are not resolved by counting. The editor reads the reports for their reasoning, and where the disagreement is substantive — one reviewer sees a fatal problem another did not address — the editor may invite a further reviewer or ask one of you a specific follow-up question. A decision that departs from your recommendation is not a rejection of your review.
What the authors see
Your recommendation is confidential to the editorial process. The authors receive the decision, the editor's letter, and your comments to them, but not the box you ticked and not your name. For that reason, do not write "I recommend rejection" or "I recommend acceptance" in the parts of the form that reach the authors; make the case for your view instead, and let the editor set expectations about the outcome.
Research articles at Peer Academics are assessed by at least two independent reviewers, and no manuscript is accepted on a single report. What the review form asks of you is set out in the Reviewer Guidelines; the revision process is described for authors in the Author Guidelines and the Peer Review Policy, and appeals in Complaints and Appeals.