Peer review is the foundation of our scholarly publication process. It allows us to support and maintain the integrity of scientific advances.
Peer reviewers play a central role in the peer-review process. The Research Micro editorial team encourages peer reviewers to read the ethical guidelines recommended by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The editorial team recommends that reviewers consider the following before accepting a manuscript to review:
All submissions to Research Micro are treated as confidential. Reviewers should not disclose any information related to a submission with a third party.
Before beginning to review the manuscript, reviewers must disclose all conflicts of interest to the editorial team.
If reviewers determine that the article is a substantial copy of another research work, please contact the editors as soon as possible.
In research studies involving human subjects, the research protocol must have been approved by an appropriate institutional research ethics committee and must be declared in the manuscript under the methodology section (Research Micro follows the ICMJE's recommendations for the conduct, reporting, editing and publication of scholarly work in medical journals).
Reviewers are expected to complete the evaluation of a submitted manuscript within 2 weeks. However, if additional time is required, reviewers should contact the editorial team as soon as possible to determine alternatives.
Our editorial process focuses on the robustness and validity of research under consideration, from methodological, analytical, statistical and ethical perspectives, rather than making subjective decisions based on novelty. Peer reviewers are the backbone of this important scholarly publication process.
We request that reviewers provide rigorous, objective and constructive peer reviews that aid the authors in revising the manuscript, thereby meeting scientific publication standards. We recommend that reviewers read the Research Micro author's guidelines to evaluate whether the manuscript meets the submission criteria such as article length, scope and clarity of the presented research work. The following sections should be assessed:
The article title should be informative and should clearly describe the presented research work.
The abstract should be brief and should capture the content of the manuscript (including the objective of the study, methodology, results and conclusions).
The introduction should clearly state the scientific problem(s) being explored in the article, the objective of the study, what is known in the literature and, if applicable, how the presented study potentially translates to solve a clinical problem.
Research Micro recommends that the reviewer evaluate the following details in the methodology section:
Reviewers should evaluate whether the presented data (tables or figures) are robust and validate the proposed scientific question. In the discussion section, the authors must have supported their findings with relevant explanations and references drawn to published literature. Reviewers should also evaluate whether the authors have drawn reasonable conclusions and described study limitations (if any).
The cited references should be in "Vancouver" style in numerical order (1, 2, 3, ...), and in the same order in which they are cited in the article. The reference style is described in the US NLM guide and recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).
Peer review is the foundation of our scholarly publication process, which allows us to support and maintain the integrity of scientific advances. After evaluating the quality of the paper, reviewers should make a recommendation (Accept, Minor Revision, Major Revision, or recommend for rejection).
Based on the recommendations of the peer reviewers, the Editors will make a decision about the steps the authors have to take in the publication process. The decision will be communicated to the reviewers and authors.
The Editors will make every attempt to reach out to the original reviewers to evaluate the revised manuscripts submitted by the authors.