The practice of peer review is to ensure that good science is published. It is an objective process at the heart of good scholarly publishing and is carried out on all reputable scientific journals. Our reviewers therefore play a vital role in maintaining the high standards of Acta Oecologica and all manuscripts are peer reviewed following the procedure outlined below.
Special issues and/or conference proceedings may have different peer review procedures involving, for example, Guest Editors. Authors contributing to these projects may receive full details of the peer review process on request from the editorial office.
Initial manuscript evaluation
The Editors first evaluate all manuscripts. It is rare, but feasible, for an exceptional manuscript to be accepted at this stage. Those rejected at this initial stage are either insufficiently original, have serious scientific flaws, have poor grammar or English language, or they are outside the aims and scope of the journal. Those that meet the minimum criteria are passed on to at least 2 experts for review.
Authors of manuscripts rejected at this stage will be informed, in general, within 2 weeks of receipt.
Type of Peer Review
This journal employs single blind review, where the reviewer remains anonymous throughout the process. The authorship of the manuscript is known to the reviewers.
How the reviewer is selected
Reviewers are matched to the paper according to their expertise. Authors are asked to provide the names and addresses of 5 potential reviewers when they submit their manuscript to Acta Oecologica - it is likely that some of the reviewers selected by the Editors will be from this list, but this is at the discretion of the Editors. Our reviewer database is constantly being updated.
Reviewer reports
Reviewers are asked, among other to evaluate whether the manuscript :
Is original, and of international, not local, significance
Is methodologically sound and uses appropriate techniques
Follows appropriate ethical guidelines
Has results which are clearly presented and support the conclusions
Correctly references previous relevant work
Reviewers are not expected to correct or copy-edit manuscripts. Language correction is not part of the peer review process. However, incomprehensible English can be a reason for rejection, or major revision.
