Thank you for agreeing to review this article. 

This document contains peer review guidance for both hybrid and standard form submissions.

Instructions for anonymous peer review: 

When reading the submission consider the bullet points below. You can give up to a page of feedback for the submission, or at least a minimum of one paragraph, uploading your review to Pubkit in the comments section when completed, or as a separate document if you prefer. You have hte option to download the submission and highlight any typos or grammatical errors in the submission directly. You can also add single-phrase comments (i.e. ‘unclear’, ‘unqualified statement’, ‘explain’, ‘expand’) to the text to highlight certain parts and reupload your reviewed version to Pubkit. 

If reuploading documents please use file naming convention:

1_Title of submission_PeerReview_Date

NOTE: Please do not include your name or initials in order to maintain anonymity of the process. 

You must make a recommendation for the submission, the options are to publish, publish with minor adjustments, publish with major adjustments, or do not publish. 

Hybrid manuscripts:

Are there any typos or grammatical errors?

Is the submission clear in terms of what the subject being discussed is?

Are there strategies that can be identified as altering the reader’s experience? Are they successful? Is the author trying to do something specific? Has it succeeded? Is it consistent throughout?

In your expert opinion, are there any fallacies in the submission (incorrect subject knowledge, logical errors, poor interpretations)? Are the arguments convincing?

Does the text evidence contemporary relevance and topicality? Does it refer or allude

to some aesthetic, cultural, social or intellectual issue? Do you feel it is timely for the

author to do so?

Is the submission suitable in terms of readability?

Can we extract, explicitly or implicitly, a critical point of view from the voice of the author?

Are the voices (and writing style) used in the submission appropriate?

Does the text convey an engaging overall impression? Is the writing/visual essay interesting and persuasive? Has the text taken the reader from the concept/topic to an experience on the page?

Are any sources or data used in the submission of appropriate quality? Are the sources used critically?

Is the purpose of the submission clear? Is there a set of questions that it raises?

Are there certain parts of the submission that require changes? What would you suggest?

Do you think the submission requires images? [Editor to give advice to author on securing image rights if so].

For visual essays especially: are the images included used in suitable connection to the contextual writing?

Is there a references list, to which Harvard referencing is followed? (please check against the Intellect Style Guide as needed) 

If the submission is over the max word count of 5000 words including bibliography, abstract and keywords, can it be edited down sufficiently?

 

Visual essay FAQ: 

How many images can be used / what is the word count equivalent of an image?

Ie. 1 half-page image = 200 words 

Additional information around visual essays: 

There are no strict rules when it comes to visual essays and the balance of text and image. To give a general sense though, a half-page image is considered equivalent to 200 words. So, the balance of image and text could be played around with given the 5,000 word limit for a hybrid/practice-based submission. There's also the option to use the full 12 images in an essay and then use the 100 word abstract and a 'Further Reading List' for context. It largely depends on the nature of the piece and, of course, this is something that our editors could work with authors on if the submission is accepted for the issue.

 

Standard form academic manuscripts:

Does the submission have 6 – 8 keywords and an abstract?

Is Harvard referencing followed? (Please consult Intellect style guide as needed)

Are there any typos or grammatical errors?

Is the submission clear in terms of what the subject being discussed is?

Are there any issues with the submission? How do you propose that the author could resolve these issues?

In your expert opinion, are there any fallacies in the submission (incorrect subject knowledge, logical errors, poor interpretations)? Are the arguments convincing?

Does the submission have a good structure and flow (is a ‘narrative’ clear)? Is the submission suitable in terms of readability?

Is the submission an appropriate length?

Is the introduction and conclusion effective?

Are the sources or data used in the submission of appropriate quality? Are the sources used critically?

Are the voices (and writing style) used in the submission appropriate?

Is any analysis used in the submission of decent quality?

Is the purpose of the submission clear? Is there a question that is answered?

Are there certain parts of the submission that require changes?

Are uncommon terms properly defined? Are different iterations of a term clearly referenced and defined in relation to the purpose of the essay? (i.e. if terms have different definitions for different authors, is this properly acknowledged?)

Do you think the article requires images? Or are the existing images appropriate? [Editor to give advice to author on securing image rights if so].

Thank you for your valued input,

JAWS Editorial Board