Instructions to IJDS Peer Reviewers

Thank you for agreeing to review this article! For IJDS, the peer review is structured through four key pillars to ensure published articles are rigorous and field enhancing.

Peer Review is designed to evaluate whether an article:

--Is Factual

--Has an argument that is accessible and clear

--Is Centred in and supported by Scholarship

--Is Enhancing the Field

Peer reviews should be kind, clear and constructive whilst ensuring the article is meeting all of the above elements. Criticism does not mean rip the article apart, it means evaluate closely and attentively that the work under review meets these criteria.

To communicate your evaluation, please answer the questions in the Reviewer Survey. You can either download it, answer the questions in your downloaded document, and upload that to PubKit, or you can simply copy and paste your answers into the space for comments.

After due consideration, please choose one of the following recommendations for the editor:

--Accept: The manuscript is ready to be published in its current draft.

--Minor Revisions: The manuscript is nearly ready but needs small corrections (e.g., fuller explanation in targeted areas, grammar fixes, limited clarity issues). Once you recommend Minor Revisions, you will not need to review the manuscript again.

--Major Revisions: There is major structural work (e.g., revising argument/organization, more/different research) that needs to be done to the manuscript, but there is something here worth pursuing. If you recommend Major Revisions, you will likely be asked to review the revision, unless you tell us otherwise.

--Reject: This manuscript has such prevalent issues that it seems like it would not be able to reach a publishable state. IJDS believes that most work can be revised into something good and resists rejecting pieces unduly, but we also understand that some pieces simply aren’t publishable.

Whatever your recommendation, please provide feedback to authors and specific suggestions for improvements. Even if the article is rejected, your comments may result in greatly improved resubmissions, or new submissions, to this journal or other journals at a later date. Your anonymous status may make it seem like a thankless task, but the peer review system is critical to the quality of academic journals. As an author, we are sure you have appreciated the feedback you have received in the past as a result of the peer review system.

To learn more about what we (and you) look for in articles, see the Article Guidelines and/or Peer Review Guidelines.

Thank you in advance for your assistance!