Peer Academics depends on reviewers who read carefully and write plainly. Review here is double-anonymous: you are not told who the authors are, and the authors are not told who you are. Reviewing is unpaid, and the journal charges authors no fees of any kind. Your report advises the editor, who takes the decision.
Responding to an invitation
An invitation gives you the article type, the title and abstract, and the due date. Accept or decline within five working days; a prompt refusal helps the authors far more than silence. Accept only if all of the following hold:
- The subject is close enough to your own work that you can judge the evidence and the argument, not merely the writing.
- You can return the report by the due date.
- You have no conflict of interest, as defined in Reviewer Conflicts of Interest.
- You accept the rules in Reviewer Confidentiality, including the prohibition on entering the manuscript into any generative artificial intelligence service.
If you decline, name one or two alternatives with their institutional email addresses. If you can review but not by the date offered, propose a date in your reply.
The timeline
| Stage | Normal period |
|---|---|
| Accept or decline the invitation | Within five working days of the invitation |
| Return the completed review | Within four weeks of accepting, unless the editor sets another date in writing |
| Ask for an extension | Before the due date, not after it |
| Review a revised manuscript in a second round | Within two weeks, since you already know the work |
Reminders are sent before the due date and again after it. If a report is substantially overdue and you do not answer, the editor withdraws the assignment and invites another reviewer. Repeatedly unanswered assignments end future invitations.
What you receive
You receive the anonymized manuscript and any supplementary files supplied for review, but not the title page, which carries the authors' names, affiliations, funding, and ethics statements. Do not try to identify the authors. If their identity is obvious to you anyway, tell the editor and say whether you can still judge the work impartially.
What a useful review contains
Be specific, and address the manuscript rather than the author. Cite page, line, section, table, or figure numbers; manuscripts carry continuous line numbers for this. Separate what is wrong from what you would have done differently, and for each flaw say what would fix it or what evidence would settle the question. Cover, as they apply to the article type:
- Contribution — what the work adds to what is known, and whether that is worth publishing.
- Framing and literature — whether the question is clearly stated and the relevant scholarship engaged fairly.
- Method or approach — whether the design, source base, or analytical strategy suits the question and is described well enough to be assessed.
- Evidence and reasoning — whether the data, sources, or arguments support the claims, and whether limitations are acknowledged.
- Presentation — structure, the necessity and readability of tables and figures, and the accuracy of the references.
- Ethics and compliance — whether the declarations, consent, and data availability statements look adequate. Raise a concern; do not investigate it yourself.
Length is not a virtue: three precise paragraphs identifying a decisive problem beat five pages of line edits. Do not ask for citations to your own work unless they are necessary to the argument, and say why.
The structure of the review form
The form has six parts. Parts A to D reach the authors with your identity removed; part E is seen only by the editor; part F records your declarations.
- A. Summary — one short paragraph, in your own words, on what the manuscript claims and how it argues it.
- B. Assessment — your judgment against the criteria above, with reasons.
- C. Essential revisions — numbered points that must be addressed for the work to be publishable, each keyed to a line or section.
- D. Minor points — numbered improvements that do not determine the manuscript's fate, including corrections to references, tables, and figures.
- E. Confidential comments to the editor — the limits of your expertise, your confidence in your judgment, or a suspicion of misconduct. Your case must still be made in substance in parts C and D.
- F. Declarations — that you have no undeclared conflict of interest, kept the manuscript confidential, and entered neither the manuscript nor your report into a generative artificial intelligence service.
You then choose a recommendation; what each option means here is set out in Review Recommendations.
Annotated files
You may upload an annotated manuscript in addition to the form, but not instead of it. First remove your name from the file's document properties and from every comment and tracked change. A file that identifies you is not passed to the authors.
After you submit
You are told the decision and, unless the manuscript was withdrawn, sent the other reports on it without their authors' names; treat those as confidential. A decision that differs from your recommendation is normal.
If you cannot finish
Tell the editor as soon as you know, through the journal system or at [email protected], and destroy any copy you hold. Do not pass the assignment to a colleague or student on your own initiative; to co-review with a junior colleague, ask the editor first.
Questions about a review go to [email protected]; website and account problems to [email protected]. Your personal data is handled as set out in the Privacy Statement.