Instructions for Reviewers

 

Your feedback will help the editor decide whether or not to publish the article. It will also help the author and allow them to improve their manuscript.

Providing your overall opinion and general observations about the article is essential. Your comments should be courteous and constructive and should not include personal remarks or details, including your name.

It is important to highlight any potential shortcomings. You should explain and support your judgement so that editors and authors can fully understand the reasoning behind your comments. You should indicate whether your comments are your own opinion or are reflected by data and evidence.

TUNISIE ORTHOPEDIQUE's policy applies a double-blind review: the author does not know the reviewer and the reviewer does not know the author(s).

Before you start

Before deciding to accept or decline an invitation to review, consider the following questions:

  • Is the article related to your area of expertise? Accept only if you feel you can provide a quality review.

  • Do you have a potential conflict of interest? Inform the editor when you respond.

  • Do you have enough time? Evaluations can be a lot of work! Before you commit, make sure you can meet the deadline.

Privacy

If you choose to agree, you must consider the documents you receive as confidential. This means that you may not share them with anyone without prior permission from the publisher. Because peer review is confidential, you should also not share any information about the review with anyone without the permission of the editors and authors. Remember, even after you have finalized your review, you must consider the article and any related files or data to be confidential documents. This means that you should not share them or information about the review with anyone without prior permission from the editor.

Specific instructions for the journal

Once you begin writing the review, be sure to familiarize yourself with the review-specific guidelines

Methodology

If the manuscript you are reviewing reports an experiment, check the methods section first. The following are considered major flaws and should be reported:

  • Poor methodology

  • Discredited method

  • Lack of processes known to have an impact on the reported research area

  • A conclusion drawn in contradiction to statistical or qualitative evidence reported in the manuscript.

Once you are sufficiently assured that the methodology is solid, review all the data in the form of figures, tables, or images.

Questions you should ask yourself about this assignment:

- Is the article within the scope of the journal?

- Is the research innovative?

- Is the title representative of the article's content?

- Does the abstract clearly summarize the content of the article?

- Is the state of the art well described and are the knowledge gaps clearly defined?

- Are the objectives well defined?

- Is the applied research methodology robust?

- Are the results reliable and have the objectives been met?

- Are the limitations correctly stated?

- Are the conclusions justified?

Your recommendation

When you make a recommendation, you will be asked to rank the article:

  • Reject (explain your reasoning in your report)

  • Accept without revision

  • Revision - major or minor (explain the required revision and indicate to the editor whether you would be happy to review the revised article). If you recommend a revision, you must provide the author with a clear and strong explanation of why it is necessary.

Keep in mind that it is possible to address separate feedback to both the editor and the author.

The final decision

The editor makes the final decision to accept or reject the article after evaluating all points of view. The editor may request another opinion or ask the author for a revised article before making a decision. Notification of the final decision will be sent to each reviewer.

Acknowledgements

We would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank you on behalf of the journal, the editors, and the authors for the time you took to make your valuable contributions to the article.