PEER REVIEW POLICY AND PROCESS

The Pakistan Journal of Medicine and Dentistry (PJMD) upholds a rigorous review policy aimed at ensuring authenticity and quality in its published articles. Employing a Double-Blind Peer Review system, PJMD maintains anonymity for both authors and reviewers during the evaluation process. Editorial officers diligently safeguard the confidentiality of manuscript identities, ensuring that any details revealing the author’s identity are removed before review. PJMD offers a double-blind peer review policy for all types of publications submitted to PJMD to preserve the anonymity of both the author and reviewer throughout the consideration process.

 

All sorts of comments or feedback regarding manuscripts by the reviewer and the feedback response by the author to the comments are saved and concealed within the cover letter to keep confidentiality intact. It is recommended that authors acknowledge all contributors, but to maintain confidentiality, the details must only be revealed within the cover letter, and the blind peer review policy must be maintained. The manuscripts submitted in PJMD are read by the staff editors exceptionally. Only papers that meet the editorial criteria are sent for formal review, including those by international and national reviewers. In between the reviews, authors are advised to improve based on the first reviewer’s comments and later submit to the second reviewer. Still, the identity is always intact and is not revealed at both ends.

Those manuscripts or research papers that don’t meet the criteria of the guideline on evaluation by the editors will be returned to the author based on insufficient material or irrelevant to the journal’s interest; otherwise, inappropriate content will be forbidden promptly without external review.

The editor is responsible for ensuring privacy and removing the authors’ information before proceeding with the articles to the reviewer to adhere to the double-blind peer review policy. It is also confirmed that each article is reviewed using nondiscriminatory and highly professional methods. Moreover, editors promptly provide the reviewers’ comments to the authors and give them ample time to make changes.

All the above-mentioned procedures are maintained and practised through a database, i.e. the Open Journal System (OJS). National and International reviewers are entitled to review each article thoroughly. All the reviewers work under the Open Journal System database, receiving and submitting articles from the Editorial Team.

This journal uses a double-blind review, which means that both the reviewers’ and authors’ identities are concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa, throughout the review process. We will refer to the (COPE, PDF) guidelines for additional clarification.

 

Submission Review Process:
  1. A preliminary completeness review is performed on every submission to PJMD.
  2. Editors evaluate the suitability of recommendations for peer review.
  3. When editors have conflicting interests, the evaluation is managed by a different editorial board member.

 

Peer Review Process:
  1. Reviewers from outside the conference, committee members, and programme chairs evaluate the proceedings papers.
  2. The selection of peer reviewers takes prior performance, reputation, expertise, and conflicts of interest into account.
  3. Editors strive to include two or more peer reviewers for primary research manuscripts; however, this number may vary in expert fields.
  4. An editor may serve as a second reviewer in extraordinary circumstances to guarantee openness and careful evaluation.
  5. Though the editorial team makes the final decision, the authors’ suggestions for reviewers may be considered.

 

Editor Responsibilities:
  1. Editors independently confirm suggested reviewers’ contact information, preferably using institutional email addresses.
  2. Without peer review, editors may accept manuscripts that do not present original research or are evaluated by a specialist reviewer.
  3. Editorial choices are made in response to detailed peer review comments that satisfy predetermined standards.
  4. The peer review process is transparent when editors sign reviews.

 

Conflicts of Interest and Confidentiality:
  1. Editors’ and peer reviewers’ communications are private and shouldn’t be disclosed to outside parties; potential peer reviewers must declare any conflicts of interest.
  2. Although editors have the last say, PJMD lets authors recommend possible reviewers.
  3. Authors are discouraged from recommending current or former colleagues from the same institution.
  4. Verifiable information, such as institutional email addresses and ORCIDs or Scopus IDs, Web of Science Researcher IDs, should be provided by the author-recommended reviewers in the cover letter.

 

Peer reviewer diversity:

PJMD is dedicated to fostering inclusion, equity, and diversity throughout its peer review process. Editors are encouraged to prioritize diverse representation across various demographics, including geographic locations, gender identities, racial/ethnic groups, and more when selecting peer reviewers. By ensuring a broad range of perspectives and backgrounds among reviewers, PJMD aims to enrich the quality and fairness of its review procedure. Embracing diversity in peer review not only reflects the journal’s commitment to inclusivity but also enhances the comprehensiveness and integrity of scholarly discourse in the field of medicine and dentistry.

Peer reviewer misconduct:

Manuscript rejection will result from submitting false or misleading information, including identity theft and the suggestion of bogus peer reviewers. PJMD follows the guidelines provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) regarding misconduct.