14 September 2017

1.

Application of the Peer Review System. All manuscripts of reviews, monographs, full papers, short reports, and news and comments submitted to Ichthyological Research will be subject to the peer review system by plural reviewers, without exception.

2.

Assignment of reviewers. Manuscripts will be assigned to two or three reviewers soon after the receipt. Such reviewers may or may not be members of the Ichthyological Society of Japan, and will generally include one or more reviewers outside Japan. Section editors will address the issue of actual or perceived bias by excluding reviewers who have a potential conflict of interest. After the assignment of reviewers, the section editor will forward the manuscript to them, and notify the Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor of the reviewers’ names.

3.

Duty of the reviewer. Reviewers will judge the manuscript according to the following five categories, together with comments and/or suggestions for improvement.

 1)

Accept without revision.

 2)

Accept after minor revision (e.g. wording and/or editorial changes).

 3)

Accept, after major revision.

 4)

Reject for now, but encourage resubmission.

 5)

Reject.
The reviewers have a responsibility to be objective and fair in all judgments, not being influenced by external pressures. Judgments should be completed within three weeks of receipt of the manuscript and returned to the section editor with comments and suggestions. The submission of a manuscript and all details associated with it must be kept confidential by everyone involved in the peer-review process.

4.

Anonymity of reviewers. To aid in the objective assessment of manuscripts, the anonymity of reviewers will be ensured at all times by the editors.

5.

Acceptance of manuscripts. The Editorial Board exclusively rules on the acceptability of manuscripts, in consideration of the reviewers’ comments and suggestions.