Peer Review Process

PCS publishes about 10-15% of submitted papers each year. The publication process from submission to publication may take a maximum of four months depending on how complaint authors are to policies, the editorial team and reviewers.

Manuscripts are selected based on the strength of the paper compared with other papers under review. We send the reviewers' comments to authors whether or not we accept the article. On occasion, we reject an article but invite a resubmission that addresses specific concerns of the editors. The procedures for manuscript review include:

  1. With one week of receipt of a manuscript, one of the Editorial Board (EB)members will review it in reference to 
  • conformity with the Journal's "Author Guidelines",
  • relevance of the article to the readers of the PCS Journal,
  • clarity of presentation, and
  •  its scientific and ethical acceptability. (declaration of conflict of interest can be found here)

The EB has three options: accept manuscripts for external review, return it to author for revision, or reject it. A manuscript not accepted by a board member is blindly by another board member. If not accepted by both, the manuscript is rejected by the EB. Decision will be made by the suggestion of a third EB member if the decisions of first two do not concur.

  1. Once accepted for external review, the EB sent the manuscript to exsternal reviewers with appropriate expertise. The peer review process of JPPM Journal follows as it stands now follows a Double blind review where both authors and reviewers identities are kept anonymous. Peer review comments should be objective and constructive without being hostile/too negative to the author(s) (COPE guideline).Reviewers will be asked to review and return manuscripts within 2 weeks of their receipt. Reviewers have few options; accept, accept with major revision, accept with minor revision, or reject.
  2. Manuscripts accepted with revision will be returned to the first author. Author(s) will be given four weeks to respond to external reviewers’ comments, make necessary changes, and return their manuscript to the EB.
  3. Manuscripts with minor revisions will be cleared by the EB and accepted for publication. Those with major revisions will be returned to external reviewers and follow the procedures as outlined for the initial review.
  4. When the manuscript is accepted, we notify authors when they can expect to receive galley proofs. Authors are expected to examine proofs within 48 hours of receiving them.
  5. All accepted manuscripts are subject to copy editing to improve clarity and achieve consistency of style and formatting of journal content. Authors will have the opportunity to approve revisions made during the copy editing process.
  6. The EB welcomes comments from Journal readers on the above procedures.