Peer review is intended to improve the accuracy, clarity, and completeness of published manuscripts and to help editors decide which manuscripts to publish. Peer-review does not guarantee manuscript quality and does not reliably detect scientific misconduct.
Peer reviewers should be experts in the manuscript’s content area, research methods, or both; a critique of writing style alone is not sufficient. Peer reviewers should be selected based on their expertise and ability to provide high quality, constructive, and fair reviews. For research manuscripts, editors may, in addition, seek the opinion of a statistical reviewer.
Peer reviewers advise editors on how a manuscript might be improved and on its priority for publication in that journal. Editors decide whether and under which conditions manuscripts are accepted for publication, assisted by reviewers’ advice.
Peer reviewers are sometimes paid for their efforts but usually provide their opinions free of charge, as a service to their profession. Editors should require all peer reviewers to disclose any conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise, related to a particular manuscript and should take this information into account when deciding how to use their review. Generally speaking, people with a direct financial interest in the results of the manuscripts should not be reviewers.
To be considered peer reviewed, a journal should have obtained external reviews for the majority of manuscripts it publishes, including all original research and review articles. Some editors request peer review for other kinds of articles, such as opinion pieces (commentaries/editorials) and correspondence. To have been peer reviewed, a manuscript should have been reviewed by at least one external reviewer; it is typical to have two reviewers and sometimes more opinions are sought.
Editors of peer-reviewed journals need not send all submitted manuscripts out for review. Manuscripts that seem unlikely to be published in that journal may be returned to authors without external review, to allow authors to submit the manuscript to another journal without delay and to make efficient use of reviewers’ and editors’ time.
Editors should state their journal’s peer review policies, including which kinds of article, are peer reviewed and by how many reviewers, in the instructions for authors. Editors should also periodically publish statistics describing their journal’s review process, such as a number of manuscripts submitted, acceptance rate, and average times from manuscript submission to rejection letter to authors and, for accepted manuscripts, time to publication.
All published articles Al-Azhar journal of pharmaceutical sciences are peer reviewed and all manuscripts submitted follows the procedure outlined below.
Initial Manuscript Evaluation: All manuscripts submitted for publication in Journal are firstly evaluated by the Editorial Board Members. The editors employ double-blind reviewing, where both the referee and author remain anonymous throughout the process.
Referee Evaluation: After initial evaluation, the manuscripts are sent to a minimum of two external referees for peer-review. If necessary, the number of referees can be increased by editors. The referees are chosen from referee board according to their expertise. Referees are asked to evaluate the manuscript’s originality, methodology, contribution to the literature, presentation of results and support for the conclusions, and appropriate referencing of previous relevant studies. Referees might accept the manuscript, reject the manuscript or might require a revision for style and/or content.
When a revision is required by the referee or referees, the author(s) are to consider the suggestions offered by the referees, and they should be sent back the revised version of manuscript in one month. Revised manuscripts returned after one month will be considered as a new submissions and peer review process is started from the beginning. Referees may request more than one revision of a manuscript.
Possible decisions on a manuscript are:
If minor revision is required, authors should return a revised version as soon as possible within one week. If major revision is required, authors should return a revised version within two to three weeks.
Final Evaluation: After favorable opinions of referees, editorial board is made the final evaluation. The articles accepted for publication by editorial board are placed in an issue sequence.
Time of Peer Review Process: The peer review process that has long time is an important problem. Naturally, the author(s) wish to take an answer about their submissions. The journal aims to complete the all peer review process within 2-3 weeks after submission. This time, however, may vary depending on the amount of revision work that needs to be completed before the manuscript is acceptable.
DUTIES OF REVIEWERS:
Guidelines to Reviewers