The Review Process
Upon receipt, the manuscript will be reviewed by the editorial staff for appropriateness. If the manuscript describes work that falls under the general mission of JSUR, it will be assigned to an editor and then sent for peer review. The editor considers suggested reviewers, conflicts of interest, and other exclusions submitted by the author(s) when selecting the referees. Reviews are expected back to the editor within 4 weeks of solicitation. Once reviews are submitted, the editorial staff decides whether to reject, accept with revisions, or accept the manuscript. Appropriate reviewer reports are provided anonymously to the authors for further revision of the manuscript. For accepted papers, the assigned editor will make a final recommendation to publish in the manuscript in the next issue of JSUR once the authors complete the revisions.
Writing the Review
JSUR represents a somewhat unorthodox venue for scientific publications. Typically a manuscript submitted to JSUR will attempt to describe a discovery that is unexpected or serendipitous, and yet is thought to be significant, or supports a hypothesis that goes against conventional wisdom. Given the contrarian nature of these results, it is important that the review process be thorough enough to ensure that accepted manuscripts have high scientific merit.
Manuscripts submitted to JSUR should therefore be evaluated with respect to following general criteria. First, the manuscript should provide sufficient background on existing hypotheses so that the discovery is understood in proper context. Second, the manuscript should provide enough technical detail to ensure the results are scientifically rigorous and reproducible. Finally, the manuscript should describe potential implications of the result, and how it contradicts or affects existing hypotheses. Editors ensure that manuscripts are evaluated under these criteria and may request further clarification from referees when necessary.