Peer Review Policy

Philosophia-bg Online Journal peer review guidelines

The refereeing process goes as follows:

  • The referee sends the editor a 2 page table-preformatted report with short arguments and/or examples supporting her/his evaluation of the paper.
  • The main criterion for the acceptance of a submitted paper is a competent treatment of a topic of relevance for the ongoing debates in the field. The referee is invited to assess the paper’s merits on the basis of the following standards, reflected in the table:
    • the importance of the issue addressed by the author;
    • the author’s knowledge on the current state-of-art in the scholarly research on the respective issue;
    • the clarity and soundness of the arguments supporting the author’s thesis;
    • the innovativeness and relevance of the author’s approach to the problem;
    • the quality of the author’s writing style – its scholarly level and grasp of the topic’s complexity.
  • The referee’s report indicates one of the following three options:
    • rejection: in case the referee’s judgement is that the paper fails to meet the above-described criteria and that rewriting would be futile. The referee is invited to provide some support for her/his decision;
    • revise and resubmit: in case the referee’s judgement is that the paper should be published provided some minor or major revisions are carried out. Revisions might be required for: a more explicit elaboration of the research question or the author’s point of view; a better embedding in the respective research field; a sharpening of focus (and elimination of redundancies); fuller documentation on specific points; a better structure of the argument; rhetorical improvements, especially those affecting clarity; etc. If the referee is a specialist on the topic, s/he is invited to make an assessment whether the author has adequately covered the field in terms of mainstream secondary literature and whether the author shows a good grasp of the primary material. The referee may also comment on redundancies, wordiness and repetition of examples.
    • unconditional acceptance: in case that a paper is deemed suitable for publication as it is. The referee I welcomed to comment briefly on its merits.
  • The final decision on the publication is made by the editor in chief.