1) Before accepting or declining the review:

Before accepting or declining an invitation for review, the reviewer should consider the following questions:

• Does the article match your area of expertise? Accept only if you think you can provide a quality review.
• Is there a potential conflict of interest on your part? You should answer this question when you contact the Germinare editor to accept or decline the review.
• Do you have time available? Reviewing an article can be very laborious. Before committing to Germinare, make sure you are able to meet the stated deadline. It is very important for the good functioning of the journal to comply with the established deadlines.

Respond to Germinare’s invitation as soon as possible, even if it is to decline. Delaying your decision implies delaying the entire review process, resulting in more waiting time for possible publication. If your answer is to decline the review, it would be very useful for the editors of Germinare if you can suggest potential alternative reviewers.

2) The preparation of the review:

Confidential material: At all times, the reviewer must treat the materials received as confidential documents. Since the peer review is confidential, the reviewer cannot share any information about the article to be reviewed with anyone, without the explicit permission of the editors and authors.

How to log in, access documents and submit your review: The review will be managed through an online system. The editor will send the reviewer all the necessary information for this procedure.

Germinare specific instructions: The reviewer must make sure that he / she knows well the publication and submission rules [Link to there], as well as the ethical principles with which Germinare Journal is committed [Link to there].

3) When reading the article:

The reviewer should pay special attention to the following contents:

• Research objectives
• Research methodology;
• Presentation and description of results;
• Discussion and conclusions;
• Any ethical considerations.

At the end, the reviewer must also present a final global assessment of the article in the review process.

4) When Writing the review:

The review will help the editor to decide whether or not to publish the article. On the other hand, the revision should also help the authors, allowing them to improve their initial text. The reviewer’s comments should be polite and constructive, and should not include any comments, personal details or comments addressed to the authors instead of the content to be reviewed. The reviewer’s name should be excluded from comments on the article.

It is important that the review provides information about any deficiencies present in the article. The reviewer must explain his decision in sufficient detail so that the editors and authors can clearly understand the comments made.

Germinare advises its reviewers to consider the checklist presented on this page during the review process. The reviewers can also include any other aspect that they consider relevant to their assessment / decision, even if this is not included in the checklist.

5) When writing the recommendation:

When making his recommendation, the reviewer should consider the following four categories: 1. Accept without review: the reviewer should highlight the main merits of the article. 2. Accept with minor revisions: the reviewer must explain, in detail, the revisions that are necessary to make the article to be accepted. 3. Decision pending significant changes: the reviewer must explain in detail the necessary revisions, highlighting the most significant aspects (and, mainly, possible serious errors) to be changed / improved in the article. 4. Reject: the reviewer must explain in detail the reasons for the rejection.

If the recommendation is 2) or 3), the reviewer must be available to follow up on the scientific review after the changes made by the authors in the article.

6) The final decision:

The final decision on whether to accept or reject an article relies with the Germinare editor, considering all requested review opinions. In the event that the opinions requested initially differ, the editor may request an opinion from another reviewer before making his final decision.

Check-list for Reviewers

Tasks to do:

• Summarize the article in a short paragraph, showing the editor the main qualities and weaknesses of the article under review, starting with general comments on the manuscript.
• Indicate your main impressions about the article, including if it is innovative, if it is interesting, if it has enough impact and if it adds value to the current state of the art.
• Ideally, when commenting on the article, use short paragraphs to make it easier for the editor and authors to understand the text. You should always identify the section to which your comments refer (use page and line numbers whenever necessary).
• Check if the article complies with the magazine’s rules.
• Provide comments and suggestions on specific content: Does the title accurately reflect the content? Is the summary complete and independent? Are the methods well defined? Are the conclusions consistent with the data obtained?
• Check the graphical summaries, tables and images carefully.
• Carefully analyze the methodology, any statistical errors, the results, the discussion and the conclusion and the references presented.
• Assess the presentation of data in the article, the reproducibility of any methodology, the analysis of any data and whether the conclusions are supported by the data.
• Keep your comments strictly factual and don’t speculate on the authors’ choices.
• Report any suspected plagiarism / fraud to the publisher or, if you have ethical concerns, provide as much detail as possible.
• Indicate whether or not the article needs to be edited at the language level (Portuguese or English).

Tasks NOT to do:

• Address comments to people rather than ideas or arguments.
• Refuse points of view that may conflict with your opinions. Keep an open perspective on the review process and consider whether the arguments presented can be considered valid or not.
• Share the review or information about it with anyone else without the explicit consent of the editors and authors involved. Any manuscripts provided for review are confidential documents. This confidentiality is in place during and after the publication process.
• Suggest that the author include citations to his own work, unless, for scientific reasons, this inclusion is essential for the improvement and understanding of the article.