IJFD Instructions for reviewers

Thank you for agreeing to review this article for the International Journal of Food Design.

Please offer a frank account of your personal opinion on the paper under review. Please offer comments on any errors you may perceive in the paper 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. Even if the paper is not in your focal area of interest, we are interested in your view, because we would like IJFD papers to appeal to a wide audience of readers with different disciplinary backgrounds and an interest in food design.

Review reports should contain the following:

  • A brief summary outlining the aim of the paper, its main contributions and strengths.
  • General concept comments 
    Research Article: highlighting areas of weakness, the testability of the hypothesis, methodological inaccuracies, missing controls, etc.
    Literature Review: commenting on the completeness of the review topic covered, the relevance of the review topic, the gap in knowledge identified, the appropriateness of references, etc. 
  • Specific comments referring to line numbers, tables or figures that point out inaccuracies within the text or sentences that are unclear.

These are some general issues to consider:

  • Do the title and abstract reflect the content of the article adequately?
  • Is the purpose of the research stated well?
  • Is the manuscript clear, relevant for the field and is the research presented in a well-structured manner? 
  • Are the figures/tables/images/schemes appropriate? Do they properly show the data? Are they easy to interpret and understand?
  • Considering its content, is the length of the article appropriate?

Additional questions for research articles:

  • Is the study design appropriate to test the hypotheses?
  • Are the manuscript’s results reproducible based on the details given in the methods section?
  • Are there adequate references to other research?
  • Are the conclusions consistent with the evidence and arguments presented?

Additional questions for literature review articles:

  • Are any relevant citations omitted? Does it include an excessive number of self-citations?
  • Are the statements and conclusions drawn coherent and supported by the listed citations?

During the manuscript evaluation, please evaluate the following aspects:

  • Scope: Does the work fit the journal scope?
  • Novelty: Is the question original and well-defined? Do the results provide an advancement of the current knowledge?
  • Significance: Are the results interpreted appropriately? Are they significant? Are all conclusions justified and supported by the results? Are hypotheses carefully identified as such?
  • Quality: Is the article written in an appropriate way? Are the data and analyses presented appropriately?
  • Scientific Soundness: Is the study correctly designed and technically sound?
  • Interest to the Readers: Are the conclusions interesting for the readership of the journal? Will the paper attract a wide readership, or be of interest only to a limited number of people?
  • Overall Merit: Is there an overall benefit to publishing this work? Does the work advance the current knowledge?
  • English Level: Is the English language appropriate and understandable?

Overall Recommendation

Please provide an overall recommendation for the next processing stage of the manuscript as follows:

  • Accept in Present Form: The paper can be accepted without any further changes.
  • Accept after Minor Revisions: The paper can in principle be accepted after revision based on the reviewer’s comments.
  • Reconsider after Major Revisions: The acceptance of the manuscript would depend on the revisions. The author needs to provide a point-by-point response or provide a rebuttal if some of the reviewer’s comments cannot be revised.
  • Reject: The article has serious flaws, makes no original contribution, and the paper may be rejected with no offer of resubmission to the journal.

Please do not include your decision in your review but communicate your decision in the confidential email message that you send to the editor. Furthermore, please do not reveal your identity in the review, as IJFD has a double-blind review procedure.

Your help is greatly appreciated. It is of considerable value in improving the quality of our publications and in improving the professional quality of all authors that submit papers to our journal.

Rick Schifferstein
Principal Editor of International Journal of Food Design.