Review Process
The arbitration process of an article
A paper, from the time it was written by the author (s) and posting it for a publication, goes through a long and meandrous path until it is published in the journal. During this long journey, the article may have been revised several times and its writing style undergoes some change and modification. Understanding the different stages of this route will not only be useful to writers, but also for readers of articles. Hence, we will introduce you to the various steps that will take place from posting an article to its publication in the Data & Symbols Processing Journal.
First step: evaluation of the article by the executive director and experts of the journal
After submitting an article to the journal's office, in the first step, the structure of the paper is carefully reviewed by the executive director and the experts of the publication. Typically, each publication considers a methodology for compiling its articles regarding the structure. This methodology, is accessible in different ways either through the insertion of pages in the print edition of the publication or through the website of the publication, should be carefully observed and studied by the authors. So, immediately after an article was received by the publication, the executive director and the experts of the journal examine the coordination and consistency of the article with the publication's instructions and in case of facing with any problem, they will reflect on the author (s) of the article and ask them to resolve the raised issues and resend the article to the journal as soon as possible. This step may take from 24 hours to a week.
Step two: Review the article by the editor or assistants of the editor
If the article passes well through the first step, it should be carefully examined and studied by the editor or editorial assistants. In this step, two crucial questions will be taken into consideration. The first question is that, if the subject of the article is in the field of specialized topics of interest to the journal. And the second question is that whether the article will add something new to existing knowledge. These two questions matter very much, because the Data and Symbols processing, journal, like other scientific publications, is interested in publishing articles that are not only in the field of interested issues to the journal but also add a new subject to the existing knowledge or, in other words, the article has a great innovation. Therefore, the articles without a new word to say, or not having the right and proper way of doing it, will be rejected at this step. It should be noted that this step may take from one to two weeks, although it is difficult to pass through this stage, but by passing this step, you cannot be sure that the article will eventually be printed, as the article will enter into the critical cycle of the evaluation by the editorial counterparts.
Step three: evaluation of the Editorial counterparts
If the article enters into this step, three judges will be selected for the article by the editor and his assistants. Selected judges must have the expertise and knowledge necessary for the subject of the article and be familiar with the manner of judgment; then, the executive director, in agreement with the editor, contacts the selected judges and discusses the subject of the article arbitration. If the judges take up the arbitration, they will be given a period of time so that at that time they can carefully study the article and review its strengths and weaknesses. In the event that one of the judges lapse from judgment, the editor will elect another arbitrator and enter into negotiations with him/her. Although ideally, this phase should be completed within one or two months, but practically it may take up to several months. However, after evaluation of an article, judges may declare their comments in the form of one of the following five suggestions to the editor of the publication:
- Not accepting the article
2. The article is not acceptable in the present circumstances; after the initial reform, it is subject to review and judgment;
3. Acceptance by amendments and re-judging;
4. Acceptance with amendments and without re-judging;
5. Unconditional acceptance
In the event that all judges comment on the disqualification of the article, after precise evaluation of their comments, the editor will decide whether to send a letter of non-acceptance to the authors or to ask for more judges' opinions. In the event that the reviewers request the publication of the article with general or partial amendments, the editor of the journal, after carefully reviewing the views of the judges, will make a final decision regarding the correspondence with the author and a list of amendments.
Step Four: Correcting the article by the author (s)
The deadlines given to authors at this stage can vary from two to four weeks. During this period, the authors should carefully consider the judges opinions and act as much as possible to remedy the announced deficiencies. If the author (s) find it unreasonable or impossible to make the case or some of the requested amendments, the necessary justification must be provided for the editor for justifying the irrationality or impossibility of making the desired changes.
In this step, it is recommended that the authors write down a letter to the judges to carefully inform them about corrections made in the text of the article. Any correction made is better to be specified in the text of the article carefully in order to distinguish it from the previous text. The best method is to specify the modifications required by each judge in a separate color in the text of the article. It is also recommended that the authors follow the deadline provided by the publication carefully and send the corrected article, along with their letter, to the journal before the expiry of this deadline.
Step Five: Evaluation of the decisions made by the judges
After receiving the corrected article along with the letter of the authors, the article is sent to the previous judges for re-examination. The judges must carefully review the author's article and opinion and consider the extent of the corrections made within the deadline. At this stage, if the corrections made in the article are found to be adequate and sufficient to the judges, they will announce to the publication. However, if there are some undone amendments, the judges may request the restoration of the remaining amendments. In some case where judges consider the reforms to be very weak or recognize that the author is unable to make corrections, they will suggest the rejection of the article to the editor. Therefore, at this stage, the fate of the article may be summarized as follows:
1. Complete rejection of the article
2. Request for remaining amendments
3. Agreeing to the Amendments (Unconditional acceptance)
At the end of this step, the editor and the editorial board carefully consider the views of the judges. If the decision is made to reject the article, the letter of refusal will be issued and if the corrections are required, the subject will be notified to the authors. And they will be asked to complete the corrections within two weeks and re-submit the revised article. If the option "accepted by the editorial board and waiting for publication" is selected in the journal system, the letter of acceptance will be issued to the authors and the article will be delivered for editing by the editors of the publication.
Step Six: Editing the accepted article
In this step, the editor of the journal carefully reviews and edits the accepted paper. Sometimes it may happen that the editing volume is very small, but sometimes the editors may need to rewrite different parts of the article. Also, in this step, the bug that could have been hidden for the writers and judges might be discovered by the editor. How to write resources and refer to them in the text, how to prepare tables and graphs, the alignment of numbers in the abstract, text, tables, and charts are some of the things that are carefully considered by the editor.
This step may take between one and two weeks. During this step, it is sometimes necessary for the editor to contact the author of the article to remove any doubt or ambiguity. At the end of this step and after doing all the editorial affairs, the paper is returned to the publication structure by publication layout and make up and sent to the authors for final confirmation.
Step seven: Final confirmation of the formatted article by the authors
In this step, which is the last step in the publication of the article, the edited article which is returned to the structure of the publication should be re-read carefully by the authors. This precision will start from the title of the article and will continue until the end of the article's resources, and authorship CV of writers. Sometimes wrong typing may occur, so even the names of the authors and their final address should be carefully considered, because if the authors confirm the final text, the article will be published with the same formats. Since by the publication of the article will no longer be possible to resolve the problem, authors are advised to finish this step with great care and obsession.
Congratulations
Now you have gone through these seven important steps with the patience and interaction between the publishers of the magazine, and the wage of this patience and your engagement is nothing but acceptance of your article.
Congratulations. Dear writer, we are still waiting for your valuable scientific articles.
Good luck.
Journal and Data Processing
