Reviewers

B) Ethical Guidelines for Reviewers

1. Reviewers should agree to review a manuscript only if the manuscript matches their expertise.

2- While reviewing articles, it is very important to respect point of views different from a review’s.   Reviews should refrain from providing unfounded criticisms just because the manuscript expresses opposing ideas.

3- Until the articles are published, the reviewers should not disclose any information about the results of research reported in the manuscripts being reviewed.

4- Reviewers must inform the Editor-in-Chief of their conflicting and competing of interests in the article being reviewed.

5- Reviewers should evaluate manuscripts without regard to nationality, religious beliefs, and ethnic, cultural and economic origins of the author.

6- Reviewers should refrain from making derogatory and libelous comments about the author(s) of the article.

7- Reviewers must be fair and unbiased in the process of conducting a review.

B-1) Basic Principles for Reviewers on Being Approached to Review

1- Reviewers are committed to conduct the initial evaluation of a manuscript within the most reasonable time-frame, especially if they have no intention to or cannot undertake the review.

2- On being approached to review, reviewers should specify their areas of specialty and notify the Editor-in-Chief that whether the manuscript matches their expertise.

3- Reviewers should agree to review only if they are fairly certain that they can return the review to the Editor-in-Chief within the proposed or mutually agreed time-frame.

4- At the very start of the review, reviewers must immediately notify the journal of any potentially conflicting or competing interests which might prevent them providing a fair and unbiased review.

5- At the very start of the review, reviewers should inform the Editor-in-Chief of any substantial similarity between the manuscript and a concurrent submission to another journal or a published article so that rational decisions can be reached.

6- Reviewers must refuse to carry out a review if they have been involved with any part of the research reported in the manuscript or its reporting.

7- Reviewers must decline to review if they feel unable to provide a fair and unbiased review.

8- Reviewers should not accept to conduct a review just to gain sight of an article. They should make sure, in advance, that they have the subject expertise to carry out the review.

9- Reviewers should review manuscripts based on the special rules and regulations which are adopted by The Journal of "Crop Production", and they should review afresh any manuscript they have previously reviewed in other journals.

10- If reviewers suspect the identity of author(s) of the article based on text of the article or any other possible ways, they must inform the Editor-in-Chief to take rational decisions and to prevent any conflict of interest to happen

11- Reviewers must refrain from conducting a review if they do not adhere to the rules and regulations of peer review adopted by this journal. 

 B-2) Basic Principles During Review

1. Reviewers must bear in mind that the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board members require a fair and unbiased assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the article so that it would help them make a decision. Therefore, the results of the review should not be reflected in general or inaccurate terms, without mentioning the cases.

2- Reviewers are required to examine and review the entire article and its supplementary data thoroughly and accurately. Therefore, examining and reviewing some parts of the article (usually abstract, introduction and conclusion) should be largely avoided.

3- Reviewers must review, assess and analyze manuscripts based on scientific documentation and clear, expressible and comparable reasoning. At the end of this process, all the documentations and reasoning must be available to the Editor-in-Chief, and in some cases to the author(s). Reviewing should be conducted in a fair way. Reviewers should make their views clear and reasonable, and criticisms should not be defamatory.

4- Reviewers should be specific in their criticisms, and provide evidence with appropriate references. They should provide clear and detailed explanations, along with examples on the margin of the text or on another paper. General statements such as ‘this work has been done before’, ‘it leaves a lot to be desired’, and ‘ the work in generally acceptable’ should be avoided to help editors in their evaluation and decisions and in fairness to the authors.

5- Reviewers should do a standard analysis on the article that enables them to present an exact report to support the Editor-in-Chief or the Editorial Board in the process of decision making.

6-Reviewers are required to check referencing of the manuscript for accuracy, adequacy and balance.

7. Reviewers should base their review on the merits of the work and not be influenced, either positively or negatively, by any personal, financial, or other conflicting considerations or by intellectual biases.

8- Given that The Journal of "Crop Production" pursues double blinded review policy, reviewers are required to inform the Editor-in-Chief immediately if the author of the article (in any way) tries to make any kind of contact with them.

9- The review of the article should be made by the reviewer appointed by the Journal. Reviewers are not allowed to involve another reviewer without coordinating with the Editor-in-Chief.

10. Reviewers are supposed to immediately inform the Editor-in-Chief of any kind of plagiarism which has occurred in the article.

11. Reviewers are required to treat all information confidentially, and to refrain from using the information obtained during the peer review process for any possible purpose.

12. In the case of detecting a data robbery by reviewers, necessary actions will be taken based on these rules.

13. Reviewers must finish reviewing and commenting on a manuscript within the agreed time frame and not prolong the review process without a good reason.

14. The model of peer reviewing in The Journal of "Crop Production" is:  post-publication, double blind; editor-in-chief mediates all interaction between reviewers and authors, peer reviews are not published, articles are reviewed by two reviewers, reviewers are out of editorial board members, peer review is facilitated by the Journal and reviews are owned by the journal.