All submitted manuscripts will undergo an initial screening process to see the work's originality, relevance, and contribution. To save time for authors and peer-reviewers, only those papers that seem most likely to meet our editorial criteria will be sent for formal review. Those papers judged by the editors as insufficient general interest or otherwise inappropriate will be rejected promptly without external review (although these decisions may be based on informal advice from specialists in the field).
Manuscripts judged to be of potential interest to our readership will be forwarded for formal review, typically to two reviewers, but sometimes more if special advice is needed (for example, on statistics or a particular technique). The editors then make a decision based on the reviewers' advice from among several possibilities:
- Accept, with or without editorial revisions.
- Invite the authors to revise their manuscript to address specific concerns before reaching a final decision.
- Reject, but indicate to the authors that further work might justify a resubmission.
- Reject outright, typically based on specialist interest, lack of novelty, insufficient conceptual advance or major technical and/or interpretational problems.