Peer Review Process

SCRIPTed publishes Articles, Analysis Pieces, Case/Legislation Comments, Book Reviews, and Conference Reports. To ensure that only submissions of the highest quality are published, the journal employs the following referee system:

1 Initial review

All submissions are first considered by the Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor to determine if they are suitable.

2 Assignment

Having determined suitability, Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor launch the review process on the SCRIPTed submission portal as follows:

  • Articles and Analysis Pieces are allocated to an Assistant Editor. The Assistant Editor forwards the Article in an anonymized manner to two recognised experts for a double-blind, independent peer review.
  • Case/Legislative comments are allocated to an Assistant Editor. The Assistant Editor forwards the Case/Legislative comments to one recognised expert for a single-blind, independent peer review.
  • Conference Reports and Book Reviews are reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief and/or Managing Editor only.

Hereinafter, these Submission Guidelines refer to the respective referee(s) carrying out the review process as “Referees”.

3 Peer review

Referees are asked to consider the following: (1) overall quality; (2) originality (its contribution to the field); (3) timeliness and time sensitivity; (4) academic standards (argumentation and presentation, including adequacy of referencing, grammar, syntax etc.); and (5) success of synthesis between areas for those submissions purporting to be interdisciplinary. Referees will recommend one of the following options: (1) accept outright for publication; (2) accept subject to minor modification; (3) accept subject to major modification; (4) reject outright.

4 Revision

On the SCRIPTed submission portal, Authors will receive the anonymised comments of the Referees. Authors are responsible for ensuring that necessary amendments are carried out in light of the recommendations of the Referees.

5 Reconsideration

Revised manuscript submissions uploaded by Authors on the SCRIPTed submission portal are returned to the Referees. If the Referees require further amendments, the submission needs to be revised again in light of the recommendations of the Referees. If the Referees approve the revised version, the submission reaches publication stage.

6 Formatting and Publication

Authors are responsible for ensuring that their submission conforms to SCRIPTed’s formatting style (see our Article and Book Review templates as well as our Format and Style Guidelines), and for ensuring that all citations are accurate.

While the Assistant Editors do NOT check the accuracy of citations, they reserve the right to make amendments considered necessary to achieve SCRIPTed stylistic and formatting standards, and may make changes with a view to (1) eliminating errors of typing, grammar, syntax, punctuation, spelling, and idiom, (2) eliminating ambiguity, illogicality, tautology, circumlocution and redundancy, (3) producing accuracy and coherence, and (4) improving the mode of expression and style of writing. Changes will be sent to Authors for approval.

Once approved by Authors, the manuscript will be treated by SCRIPTed as final and ready for publication. No further changes will be allowed to the text absent compelling justification.