Review process
The process of reviewing articles is of particular importance for all scientific publications in the world to protect and improve the validity of scientific efforts. The review process of all journals published by Allameh Tabtaba’I University includes equal and double-blind reviewing, meaning that the authors and reviewers have no knowledge of each other’s identity.
Each initial manuscript submitted to the publication is reviewed by at least 2 independent reviewers. Before starting the scientific evaluation by the reviewers, all the original manuscripts are checked to prevent plagiarism. The publications of Allameh Tabataba’I University have not shown any tolerance in the field of plagiarism and have always examined and studied all the articles registered in the journals of this university as carefully as possible to ensure that these works are free from plagiarism.
The editor of the journal ensures that the peer review process is completely confidential and that no one other than the authors and reviewers get any information about the content of the submitted work until the time of publication in the journal. The final decision about the initial version is entirely up to the reviewers and no external factors have any influence on this decision. In case of disagreement between the same reviewers, the final decision of acceptance or rejection is made by the third reviewer or the editorial team.
In the publications of Allameh Tabataba’I University, the anonymity of all employees involved in the review process, especially the reviewers, is done as completely as possible by using an online management system.
To support this process please pay attention to the following points in submitting your articles:
Sending these two files are necessary:
- The main file which contains the title of the article, abstract in Persian, main article, list of references, and abstract in English.
- The authors’ profile file, including the title of article, the authors’ first and surnames based on their priority and their characteristics in the form of footnotes, for instance:
Ahmad Sabahi and the details in the form of a footnote, professor of private law at the university ……………., email address (corresponding author), Farsi abstract and then English abstract and all items are written in English.
- All subsequent pages of the file should not contain any information about the identity of the author(s).
- Please do not mention the authors’ names before the abstract of the article or in the footer of any of the pages.
After submitting the file to each of the journals of the Allameh Tabataba’I University, the editorial team of the journal reviews it in advance. If the article meets the basic requirements for the reviewing process, it will be sent to the related reviewers so that the matching and double-blind review process can be done. After the completion of the arbitration process, the decision is made as one of the following options:
- Accept
- Conditional acceptance (need to revise and correct)
- Rejection
The process of scientific and expert judgment and decision-making processes in the journal
The expert judging process in this journal is a quality control mechanism. A process in which experts in the relevant research field, without knowing the names and identities of the author(s), scientifically examine the works, and its purpose is to ensure the high quality of the article. However, the final acceptance or rejection of the article is not the responsibility of expert judges, the final decision regarding the publication of the article is made by members of the editorial board, which is based on the opinions of respected judges and the review of the article.
Initial examination (one to two weeks)
After uploading the article by the author, the article is reviewed briefly. In the initial review, some articles are rejected due to the lack of thematic suitability and lack of necessary criteria, and only articles that meet the following criteria are sent to expert review:
- To be consistent with the goals and perspectives of the journal.
- In terms of form, it should conform to the pattern and guidelines of the journal.
- In terms of content and science the article is eligible to be sent to the reviewer.
- Author(s) has/have used up-to-date and reliable sources of the world.
- Be innovative
- The style of writing a journal magazine should be followed.
Expert review of the article (one to four months)
Papers that pass the initial screening stage, and are determined to be sent for peer review will be sent to two reviewers with confidentiality and anonymity of the authors. Neither the reviewer knows the names of the author(s) nor the author(s) of the name of the reviewer. Based on the results of the judging and according to the opinion of the editorial board, some articles may be sent to a maximum of 4 judges. In this case the arbitration process may last more than two months.
Then the editor together with other members of the editorial board review the article based on the expert report of the referees and their explanations and the edits made by the author(s).
Final decision
- The article is accepted without any changes and will be printed as it is (acceptance).
- It is published by taking into account the minor corrections suggested by the editorial board or reviewers. (acceptance)
- To be accepted by including the major amendments: the journal will publish the article when the suggested changes have been made in the text of the article. In this section, the author(s) re-uploads the revised article and the quality of the article is checked again. (conditional acceptance)
- Rejection of the article. The journal office does not publish the article due to its poor content and quality, because it concludes that the article, even after major changes by the author, will not meet the standards required for publication.
The request for correction in the article is only for the improvement of the author(s)’ article and does not constitute the publication of the article. After the corrections, the article will be re-reviewed by the referee and then the editorial board, and if it gets the publication score and the approval of the editorial board, it will enter the publication process.
