Reviewer Guidelines
Reviewers may be invited by Section Editors when an Article requires subject-specific expert evaluation. Reviewer input helps the editor confirm technical clarity, factual reliability, source quality, and reader safety. For Insights, reviewer involvement is optional and does not automatically convert an Article into a formally peer-reviewed journal paper.
Evaluation Criteria
Reviewers are asked to evaluate submissions against the following parameters:
- Scope: Is the topic relevant to the assigned NiviScholar Insights series?
- Clarity: Is the writing understandable, well-structured, and accessible?
- Evidence: Are the claims sufficiently supported by references, observations, or general facts?
- Technical Elements: Are equations, images, figures, tables, and methods descriptions understandable and correctly labelled?
- Originality: Does the article represent original framing or synthesis (not copy-pasted or plagiarized)?
- Ethical Concerns: Are there signs of fabricated sources, undisclosed AI writing, or conflicting interests?
Reviewer Conduct
- Accept an assignment only when you have suitable expertise and enough time to review.
- Declare conflicts of interest before reviewing.
- Do not share, upload, reuse, or circulate unpublished manuscripts or figures.
- Write comments that are specific, professional, and actionable.
- Separate comments for authors from confidential comments for editors.
Reviewer Recommendations
After reviewing the Article, you should provide one of the following recommendations:
- Accept: The article is ready for publishing in its current state.
- Minor Revisions Required: Needs minor grammatical or source adjustments.
- Major Revisions Required: Needs structural changes, deeper arguments, or revised references.
- Reject: Out of scope, contains serious inaccuracies, or lacks ethical integrity.