Before you accept or decline your review assignment, consider the following questions:
Does the article match your area of expertise? Only accept if you feel you can provide a high quality review.
Do you have a potential conflict of interest?
Can you honor the deadline? Reviewing can be a lot of work – before you commit, make sure you have the time to meet the deadline.
If you accept, you must treat the materials you receive as confidential documents. This means you can’t share them with anyone without prior authorization from the editor. Since peer review is confidential, you also must not share information about the review with anyone without permission from the editors and authors.
If you decline the invitation to review, if possible, please suggest a colleague who may be able to review the manuscript. If appropriate, the editor will send an invitation to review to that individual. You may not “transfer” your invitation to review the manuscript to a colleague.
How to conduct a review
Summarize the article in a short paragraph. This shows the editor you have read and understood the research.
Give your main impressions of the article, including whether it is novel and interesting, whether it has a sufficient impact and adds to the knowledge base.
Point out any journal-specific points – does it adhere to the journal’s standards?
If you suspect plagiarism, fraud or have other ethical concerns, raise your suspicions with the editor, providing as much detail as possible.
Give specific comments and suggestions that would improve the study, including layout and format, Title, Abstract, Introduction, Method, statistical errors, Results, Conclusion/Discussion, language and References.
Publishing in IJAHP is inserting yourself in a scholarly conversations in this publication. Prior to submission, the author(s) should make sure of understanding the current status of the discussion about his/her topic in this journal. Authors are not required to cite works from IJAHP but must show they know what has been done in their specific field of research in our journal as well as in the other relevant academic outlets.
Please consider the following aspects when reviewing a manuscript:
Significance to the target scientific community
Originality
Appropriateness of the approach or experimental design
Appropriateness of the statistical analyses
Appropriate literature citations
Adequacy of experimental techniques
Soundness of conclusions and interpretation
Relevance of discussion
Organization
Adequacy of title and abstract
Appropriateness of figures and tables
Appropriateness of supplemental material
Length
Your recommendation
When you make a recommendation, it is worth considering the categories the editor most likely uses for classifying the article:
Do not publish this paper (explain reason in report)
Publish this paper only if the author addresses the reviewer's concerns (explain the revision that is required, and indicate to the editor whether or not you would be happy to review the revised article).
Publish this paper
Also, when making a recommendation, it is very important you take into consideration the journal you are reviewing this paper for. Different papers are suitable for different journals. Therefore, keep in mind the papers published in IJAHP and consider if this paper would fit with those.
The final decision
The editor ultimately decides whether to accept or reject the article. The editor will weigh all views and may call for a third opinion or ask the author for a revised paper before making a decision.