Peer review procedures

Detailed operational guidelines on the procedures, timelines, and tasks of the parties involved in the evaluation process of the Sinappsi journal: Authors, Members of the Scientific-Editorial Committee, Reviewers, Editor-in-Chief, Editorial Board.

Throughout the evaluation process, all parties are required to adhere to the Code of Ethics of the Sinappsi journal, which describes best practices aimed at ensuring rigour, accuracy and neutrality on the issues addressed in the journal.

1. Evaluation procedure (peer review)

(3.5 months from the receipt of proposals)

The double-blind peer review is the general rule that applies to all articles published in Sinappsi (with some possible exceptions indicated in section 2).

The process is as follows:

The Author:

  • submits the complete article (written according to the provided guidelines and, in case of a call for papers, within the indicated timeframe) to the e-mail address [email protected], accompanied by the duly completed cover sheet.

The Editorial Board: 

  • conducts an initial check for the existence of the minimum editorial requirements (see Inapp Text Preparation Guidelines – January 2023) and informs the Editor-in-Chief of the outcome of the pre-evaluation;
  • sends the article, possibly accompanied by a comment from the Editor-in-Chief, to the Scientific Committee and/or the Editor (a role present in the case of monographic issues).

The Editor-in-Chief:

  • verifies compliance with the principles established in the ethical standards;
  • in case the minimum requirements are found to be lacking, informs the corresponding Author of the need to revise the text to make it compliant as a preparatory and necessary step for the continuation of the process or, where necessary and in extreme cases (e.g., articles already published in whole or in part or containing blatant plagiarism), rejects the article.

The Scientific Committee or the Editor of the monographic issue:

  • assesses whether the article is in line with the journal’s objectives and whether it is relevant to the call for papers;
  • identifies two external Reviewers.

PEER REVIEW

The Editorial Board:

  • send the anonymised text and the scientific evaluation form to the Reviewers separately, indicating the deadline for returning the evaluation.

The Reviewer:

  • produces the evaluation individually and sends its evaluation sheet by the indicated deadline to the e-mail [email protected].

(3 weeks)

The review process by the Reviewers may result in one of the following outcomes: acceptance; acceptance subject to minor revisions; acceptance subject to significant revisions; rejection.

Case 1. acceptance (publish as it is)

The Editorial Board:

  • sends the Author notification of the positive outcome of the evaluation.

Start of the editorial processing for the publication of the article.

Case 2. acceptance subject to revisions (minor/relevant)

The Editorial Board:

  • forwards the two anonymous evaluations to the authors, with a request for revision, also indicating the necessary editorial revisions.

The Author:

  • makes the required revisions, which must be highlighted in the text and accompanied by an explanatory note regarding the changes made.

(2/3 weeks)

The Editorial Board:

  • receives the revised article from the Author and sends the new version to the Reviewers for the second evaluation step.

The Reviewers: 

  • send their opinion on the new version (at this stage: reject, minor revisions or publish as it is) within 15 days, with a possible request for further revisions to be made by the Author within 15 days. 

The Editorial Board:

  • sends notice of the final outcome of the evaluation to the Author at the conclusion of the second evaluation step or of any further steps that may have become necessary.

Start of editorial processing for publication.

Case 3. Rejection

The Editorial Board:

  • sends the Author the final notice of the outcome of the evaluation indicating the reasons for the rejection.

Special cases:

  1. Conflicting assessments of the two auditors

The Editorial Board:

  • sends the two evaluation sheets along with the article to the Scientific Committee for a third opinion.

The Scientific Committee:

  • sends its comments on the evaluations and provides an additional Reviewer for a third opinion.

The third Reviewer will proceed with their evaluation according to the established procedures, initiating a new review process.

  1. Acquisition of a single evaluation

In the event that only one evaluation is obtained (due to the inability of one of the two identified Reviewers to conduct or complete the review), the evaluation process may also be carried out and concluded with the opinion of only one Reviewer in order to meet the publication deadlines.

2. Extraordinary publication procedures

(3 months after invitation)

Given that double-blind peer review is the general rule to be applied to all articles published in Sinappsi, including those written by invitation of the Scientific Committee or the Editorial Board, it may occur that for certain contributions, external evaluation is not envisaged, due to the expertise of the Author and/or the type of content.

In such cases:

  • The Scientific Committee and the Editor-in-Chief express their opinion, offering the Author any revision instructions, if deemed strictly necessary. 

The lack of submission of the article to scientific evaluation will be indicated in a note on the first page of the published contribution.