The journal peer review process
Understand the journal and case study peer review process and read our tips for revising your submission.
When you have submitted your paper or case study, up to three experts in the field will review it to provide validation, quality control and added value to you in the form of constructive feedback.
Double anonymous peer review
The most common form of peer review for our journals and case studies is 'double anonymous', which keeps the process as objective as possible. Reviewers are not aware of the author's identity, and you will not know the identity of the reviewers.
Role of the journal editor
The journal editor is a subject matter expert in the journal topic and ensures that each manuscript adheres to the journal’s aims and scopes, author guidelines and wider Emerald policies. The journal editor, and in the case of some of our journals, the associate editor, will then take the manuscript through the peer review process by selecting relevant reviewers and guide the manuscript through the revision stages.
Role of the reviewer
A reviewer is a carefully selected scholar from the field who will read the manuscript and provide the journal editor and the author with detailed and useful feedback to help take the manuscript to its best version.
What do reviewers look for?
This will vary from title to title, for example a journal with a strong research focus will put more emphasis on research methodology, while journals publishing case studies will focus on the quality of the case and accompanying teaching note.
The questions editors ask reviewers
- Does the article or case study say something original? Does it add to the body of knowledge?
- If it is a case study, is this its first use?
- If it’s research, is the design, methodology, theoretical approach and critical review sound?
- Are the results well-presented and have they been correctly interpreted? Is the analysis sufficiently rigorous?
- Is the submission set in the context of the wider literature?
- Are there sufficient relevant citations?
- Are these well referenced and are other people's views credited?
- Is the submission accurate?
- Is any information missing or wrong?
- Does the title of the submission accurately reflect the contents?
- How useful would the submission be to a professional or student?
- Is it an example of “good practice”?
- If research-focused, could the study be replicated in other situations?
