For reviewers
Reviewer Guidelines
What International Marine Science Journal asks of a reviewer, and what a useful review of a marine-science manuscript contains.
Peer review here is single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request. If you have accepted an invitation, this page is what the journal is asking you to do.
Invitation
Before you accept
Expertise
Accept if you can assess the substance. If you can judge part of the manuscript but not all of it — the ecology but not the acoustics — accept and say which part you are competent to assess, so the editor can seek a second opinion on the rest.
Competing interests
Decline if you have worked with the authors recently, share their institution, are in direct competition on the same question, or have a financial or personal interest. If in doubt, tell the editor and let them decide.
Time
Accept only if you can complete the review in the timeframe agreed with the editor. Declining promptly is more helpful than accepting and delaying; suggest an alternative reviewer if you can.
Assessment
What to assess
- Scope and contribution
- Does the work sit within the journal's scope, and does it add something to marine science? Regional description, a species record or a carefully bounded local study is a legitimate contribution; novelty is not the only test.
- Question and design
- Is the question clear, and can the design answer it? This is the judgment that matters most; problems here cannot be fixed by revision.
- Methods
- Are they reported in enough detail to be repeated, with the items in the next section that apply to this study type?
- Data and analysis
- Are the data adequate for the claims, the statistics appropriate to the design, and non-independence in space, time or taxonomy accounted for?
- Results
- Are findings reported with the quantities that support them — effect sizes, variability and sample sizes — rather than significance alone? Do figures and tables show what the text says?
- Interpretation
- Do the conclusions follow, and are limitations stated honestly?
- Ethics and permits
- Are the permits, approvals and declarations the work requires reported? Raise it with the editor if they are missing.
- Reproducibility
- Would the data-availability statement let someone else obtain the data and repeat the analysis?
By study type
What to look at, by study type
Apply only what fits the manuscript in front of you.
- Field and sampling studies
- Sampling design and whether it matches the question; spatial and temporal coverage against the variability of the system; replication and whether replicates are genuinely independent; sources of bias from gear, time of day, season or access; and whether the generalization in the discussion is supported by the coverage.
- Fisheries
- Stock or population assumptions and whether they are justified; fishery-dependent versus fishery-independent data and the bias each carries; gear selectivity; the assumptions of any assessment model and their sensitivity; and whether management inference is supported at the scale claimed.
- Marine ecology
- Observational or experimental design; the unit of replication; whether community metrics are appropriate and comparably calculated; habitat and environmental context; and whether the statistical approach matches the structure of the data.
- Oceanography
- Instrument calibration and drift; sampling resolution against the scale of the process studied; processing steps and their effect on the result; quality control and the treatment of flagged data; and whether stated accuracy supports the differences being interpreted.
- Pollution and environmental studies
- Analytical method and its suitability for the matrix; limits of detection and quantification; quality assurance including blanks, recoveries and reference materials; treatment of values below detection; and whether concentrations are interpreted against an ecological benchmark rather than by magnitude alone.
- Molecular and genomic work
- Controls; how sequences were assigned to taxa and against which reference; whether accessions are deposited; and whether the phylogenetic or diversity analysis supports the identification claimed.
- Modeling and remote sensing
- Whether evaluation is appropriate to the model or product and its claims, using analytical checks, simulation benchmarks, reference data or independent observations as appropriate; whether assumptions, uncertainty and limits of application are reported.
Proportion
Claims and evidence
Flag explicitly any claim that exceeds the evidence. This is among the most valuable things a review can do, and it is usually a matter of wording rather than of the science.
- An association described as an effect, an impact or a driver.
- A mechanism asserted from a correlation.
- A single site, season or population generalized to a region, a basin or an ecosystem.
- A change attributed to climate without a record long enough, or a method able, to separate it from natural variability.
- A management or policy recommendation resting on evidence at a smaller scale than the action proposed.
- A conservation claim that the data describe but do not demonstrate.
- A negative result reported as an absence rather than as a limit of detection.
Say what the evidence does support. A recommendation to soften a claim is more useful when it offers the wording that would be accurate.
The review
Writing the review
- Structure
- A short summary of what the manuscript does and your overall view; then major points in order of importance; then specific points by line or section. Number them so authors and editor can respond point by point.
- Be specific
- "The statistics are inappropriate" is not actionable. Say which test, why it does not fit the design, and what would fit.
- Separate required from suggested
- Distinguish what must change for the work to be sound from what would improve it.
- Tone
- Address the work, never the authors. Assume competence and good faith, and remember that a reviewer's job is to improve a manuscript as well as to judge it.
- Recommendation
- Give a clear recommendation, and confidential comments to the editor where something does not belong in the author-facing review.
- Language
- Do not recommend rejection on the quality of the English. Where language impedes understanding, say so and recommend editing.
Conduct
Confidentiality and conduct
- Confidentiality
- A manuscript under review is confidential. Do not share it, discuss it outside the review process, or use its content before publication.
- File handling
- After submitting the review, reviewers should securely delete downloaded manuscript files and must not retain or use unpublished material.
- Involving a colleague
- If you want a junior colleague to contribute, ask the editor first, and name them so their contribution is recorded.
- AI use
- Reviewers must obtain journal permission before using AI to assist with a review. Any permitted use must be disclosed, and confidential manuscript content must not be uploaded where confidentiality cannot be assured.
- Double-blind manuscripts
- For double-blind manuscripts, reviewers must not attempt to identify the authors.
- Suspected misconduct
- Raise plagiarism, duplicate publication, fabrication or image manipulation with the editor privately. Do not contact the authors, and do not investigate yourself.
The rules behind these expectations are on the Editorial Policies page. Researchers willing to join the reviewer register can write to the editorial office.