ISSN: 2073-2635
eISSN: 2949-270X
ISSN: 2073-2635
eISSN: 2949-270X
En Ru

Reviewing

General rules for reviewing

1.     Manuscripts of scientific content must undergo a pre-publication examination procedure - reviewing. These manuscripts include:

  • all types of empirical articles;

  • all types of theoretical articles (including systematic and analytical reviews);

2.     In pre-publication examination, the journal uses the double-blind review method: the author does not know who is reviewing him, the reviewer does not know who he is reviewing. The manuscript undergoes examination only in an anonymous (impersonal) submission.

3.     The initiator of the examination is the Editorial Board, headed by the Editor-in-Chief of the journal. Under the direction of the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board, the Managing Editor appoints initially two reviewers. In controversial cases, an additional third reviewer may be involved.

4.     Well-known specialists recognized in their professional communities who have published in topics relevant to the manuscript being reviewed over the past five years are involved in the review.

5.     Both internal experts from the editorial board of the journal and external independent researchers can serve as reviewers.

6.     If there is a conflict of interest, for example, the reviewer and the reviewed author are affiliated with the same organization, are colleagues, work together in the same department, in the same laboratory or research center, at the same faculty, or are participants in the same research project, individual results of which are presented in the proposal to review the manuscript, the reviewer is obliged to notify the producing editor and the editorial board represented by the Editor-in-Chief and refuse to conduct an examination of the manuscript.

7.     The reviewer must be polite towards the author, the text of the review must be constructive. Personal criticism is not allowed.

8.     The author must respond reasonably and politely to the reviewer’s comments both in a separate text file, which he writes in free form, and in the text of the article itself by responding to all the Reviewer’s comments.

9.     Based on the results of the examination, the reviewer recommends, and the producing editor, under the guidance of the Editor-in-Chief and the editorial board, makes one of the following possible decisions:

  • "reject";

  • “send for revision taking into account the comments of the reviewers”;

  • "publish"

Revision of the manuscript can be defined by the reviewer as “minimal and without subsequent re-review” or “significant with subsequent re-review”.

10.     In case of inconsistent assessment of the article by reviewers, the review is sent to a third reviewer.

11.     The author receives the text of his manuscript with remarks, comments, recommendations of reviewers in an anonymous (impersonal) form, as well as mandatory notification of the decision made.

12.     The standard review period is 30 days from the moment the manuscript is assigned to the reviewer. The total review period, taking into account “minimal” revision and re-review, is 35-40 days. The total review period, taking into account “significant” revision and re-review, is 40-45 days.

13.     If the Reviewer has not sent his review by the specified deadline, then the article will be withdrawn from the review process from this expert. If the author does not send a revision of his article within the specified period without a valid reason, then the editorial board, headed by the Editor-in-Chief, has the right to reject such an article.

14.     All reviewers work on a voluntary basis, without additional compensation.

15.     Reviews are stored in the publishing house and in the editorial office for 5 years.

16.     Responsibility for implementing the journal's review policy lies with the editorial board, headed by the Editor-in-Chief, as well as the scientific and production editors. Responsibility for the quality of published works lies with the Editor-in-Chief, editorial board, scientific and production editors, reviewers and authors.

17.     The editors undertake to send copies of reviews to the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation upon receipt of a corresponding request by the editors of the publication.

General procedure for assessing and reviewing a manuscript

Each submitted manuscript goes through several stages of examination and evaluation before publication.

Stage 1

All manuscripts with scientific content - research and review articles - are checked for originality of the text and the presence of incorrect borrowings. Checking is carried out through the software tools of the company “Antiplagiarism VUZ”. The producing editor analyzes the results obtained in detail and, headed by the Editor-in-Chief, makes a final decision on the level of originality of the text and the presence or absence of incorrect borrowings in the manuscript. Manuscripts that do not pass through the “University Anti-Plagiarism” system do not enter the next stages of examination.

Stage 2

Further, if the manuscript has successfully passed the originality test, the producing editor, under the guidance of the editor-in-chief and the editorial board, determines its compliance with the general formal requirements, in particular, the following “input” points:

  • (1) subject theme of the journal;

    (2) genre and type of the work to be published;

    (3) correctness of the manuscript text, quality of preparation of illustrative material, etc.;

    (4) literacy, clarity and logic of presentation of the text in accordance with the norms of the literary language;

    (5) availability of all necessary metadata in Russian and English.

The producing editor sends manuscripts that do not meet the journal's requirements for revision. If the author has finalized the article in accordance with the Guidelines for the Formatting of Articles adopted in the journal and the style file, corrected errors and provided all the necessary metadata in Russian and English, the article is accepted and sent for further examination.

Stage 3

The producing editor submits the manuscript, which has passed the 1st and 2nd stages of the preliminary examination, for peer review to two reviewers who are recognized in the professional community as active specialists in the thematic area relevant to the work being reviewed. Before being sent for review, the manuscript is anonymized (affiliations, information about the authors, and links to the author’s own works in the text and in the bibliography are removed). In the event of de-anonymization of the author by the reviewer, the latter must immediately notify the Executive Secretary and the editorial board about this fact in order to prevent a possible conflict of interest. Conflicts of interest may be due to personal relationships, beliefs and scientific rivalries, that is, factors that prevent an impartial analysis of the contents of the manuscript and an objective decision to make the publication of research results.

Review: rules for writing

The text with the results of the examination of the contents of the manuscript is presented by the reviewer on a review form, which, in addition to answers to the questions posed, also involves a description of the shortcomings and advantages of the manuscript in free form. The free form allows the reviewer, in any order and degree of detail, to determine the scientific value and significance of the manuscript being reviewed.

The review may begin with a brief summary of the manuscript being reviewed. The summary will help the commissioning editor and the author understand whether the reviewer understood the article correctly. Otherwise, the text of the review may be based on an ambiguous or even false interpretation of the text of the work being reviewed.

After the summary, the reviewer evaluates the content of the manuscript according to the following criteria:

  • relevance of the topic;

  • novelty of the research;

  • academic objectivity;

  • correctness, reliability and verifiability of the results obtained;

  • depth of research and completeness of presentation of material;

  • assessment of the likelihood of practical use of the results obtained;

  • assessment of the prospects for further research in this direction.

The review, in a reasoned form, contains the following provisions:

  • positive qualities of the work – both the research itself and the text describing the research;

  • shortcomings in the work as such, and in the text of the manuscript;

  • characteristics of the presentation style of the article and the conclusions obtained;

  • historiographic coverage and completeness of use of the array of previous scientific literature;

  • comments, suggestions and comments on finalizing the text of the manuscript, if the reviewer intends to further recommend the manuscript for publication;

  • final assessment of the work and recommendation to publish or reject the manuscript according to the criteria:

The review ends with final recommendations, which are formulated on the review form for the reviewer to choose from in the form of one of the following sentences:

(1) Publication of the manuscript without additional revision.

(2) Publication of the manuscript after minor revisions, which can be made by the author without re-reviewing.

(3) Publication of the manuscript after significant revision, which requires mandatory additional review.

(4) Rejection of the manuscript due to significant and irreparable deficiencies.

The reviewer does not spend time on literary editing of the manuscript, but focuses on the scientific quality of the manuscript and the overall style of writing, which should be consistent with the best examples of clear and concise academic writing. If the reviewer finds that the manuscript requires linguistic correction, he informs the producing editor, who sends it to the scientific or literary editor. In case of disagreement between reviewers in assessing the manuscript, the final decision is made by the editorial board headed by the Editor-in-Chief.

If the opinions of reviewers on the same manuscript differ, then a third reviewer is involved in the examination process to make an objective decision on publication or rejection of the article.

Upon completion of the review and the final decision on publication or rejection of the manuscript, the publishing editor should offer reviewers the following opportunities related to the procedures of open science and translation of review texts as (a) a special form of scientific publication; (b) a specific element of scientific communication and (c) a significant part of the overall text of science:

  • publication of the text of the review in the national analytical and bibliographic system “Russian Science Citation Index” on the elibrary.ru platform with attribution;

Reviewer’s Ethics and Moral Obligations


Reviewing is an essential component of the scientific communication system, the main tool that formalizes the procedure for recognizing a new scientific result in the academic community. For the author, reviewing is the only means of confirming the achievement of a new scientific result and assigning priority to the author. All scientists are readers and at the same time authors. And scientists have the opportunity to publish their own works thanks to their participation in reviewing the manuscripts of colleagues.

A reviewer who realizes that he is not competent enough, or does not have enough qualifications or professional experience to examine the manuscript, or that he does not have enough time to review, in any of these cases, is obliged to promptly contact the editorial office, the producing editor and the editorial board represented by the Editor-in-Chief with a request to exempt him from reviewing a specific manuscript.

The manuscript of a scientific work that is reviewed by an expert should be treated exclusively as a confidential document. The text of the manuscript must not be discussed with outsiders who are not involved in the work of the journal.

The reviewer is obliged to give only an objective assessment of the text of the manuscript. Personal criticism of the author is unacceptable. The reviewer must clearly and reasonably express the opinion.

If a reviewer, while studying a manuscript, discovers significant similarities, textual proximity, or even complete textual matches between the manuscript he is reviewing and any other previously published work, he is obliged to draw the attention of the publishing editor to these facts of borrowing.

Any conclusion, argument, statement that appeared in the science of a previously reviewed work, that is, already published in a previous source work, must be confirmed through mandatory citation, that is, a bibliographic link to this primary source.

Experts are strictly prohibited from reviewing manuscripts in the event of a conflict of interest in the form of scientific competition or, conversely, in the case of participation in joint scientific projects with the reviewed author or with an organization with which the reviewed author is affiliated.