Reviewer guidelines

Before you accept

• Accept only if the manuscript is within your expertise and you can report within the agreed time.
• Decline if you have a conflict of interest — recent collaboration or co-authorship with any author, the same institution, a financial interest, or a competing piece of work of your own on the same question.
• Tell the editor promptly if you cannot complete a review you have accepted, so the manuscript is not delayed.

Confidentiality

A manuscript under review is confidential. Do not share it, discuss it with anyone outside the review process, or use anything in it for your own work before publication. Do not upload a manuscript or any part of it to a generative AI tool: that breaches confidentiality and places the authors' unpublished work outside our control.

If you wish to involve a colleague or a junior researcher in the review for training purposes, ask the editor first and name the person in your report.

Writing the review

A useful review tells the editor whether the work is sound, and tells the authors how to make it better.

• Importance and originality — does the work address a worthwhile question, and does it add to what is already known?
• Methods — are the design, sample, measurements and analysis appropriate and described in enough detail to be repeated?
• Results — are they reported fully and accurately, and do the tables and figures support them?
• Conclusions — are they supported by the data, and are limitations acknowledged?
• Ethics — are approvals, consent, registration and declarations present and adequate?
• Presentation — is the writing clear enough for the reader? Note language problems in general terms; do not copy-edit.

Number your comments and separate the ones that are essential from those that are suggestions. Give reasons and, where you can, a reference. Write about the work, not the authors, and keep the tone one you would want to receive.

If you suspect a problem

If you suspect plagiarism, duplicate publication, data fabrication or image manipulation, raise it with the editor in your confidential comments rather than with the authors, and say what led you to the concern. Do not investigate it yourself.

Your recommendation

Recommend accept, minor revision, major revision or reject, and keep it in the confidential comments to the editor. The decision is the editor's; your analysis matters more than the recommendation itself.

Recognition

Reviewing is unpaid. We acknowledge our reviewers' contribution and, on request, will confirm in writing the reviews you have completed for us.

Register as a reviewer