• Accepting to become part of the reviewing process is not compulsory, even tough the peer-review process is the life of Science. Each researcher should feel himself morally obliged to not refuse whenever possible.
  • The Reviewer is anonymous except when he/she desires to be known. The authors are always known.
  • A referee of a manuscript should judge objectively the quality of the manuscript and respect the intellectual independence of the authors. In no case is personal criticism appropriate.
  • When the Researcher is asked to review, he/she should accept when: a) is really competent in the field; b) there is no conflict of interest.
  • After accepting, the reviewer should conduct the revision process confidentially. It should be neither shown to nor discussed with others except, in special cases, persons from whom specific advice may be sought; in that event, the identities of those consulted should be disclosed to the editor.
  • In the revision process, the reviewer should be conscious of the Journal politics, making the report and taking the decision accordingly.
  • A referee should be alert to failure of authors to cite relevant work by other scientists. A referee should call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity between the manuscript under consideration and any published paper or any manuscript submitted concurrently to another journal.
  • The main points to check are: a) the originality of the work; b) the proper citation of previous work of other authors, dealing with the same subject and/or related to the results presented; c) the clearness of the objectives; d) the correctness of the methods (including mathematics if any).
  • The revision consists mainly in the answer to the questions raised in the Reviewer’s checklist, and in a brief written comment to be sent to the author/s. If the reviewer thinks necessary, can add further comment to the Editor (not open for authors).
  • The comments should not contain personally offensive phrases or generic sentences containing personal criticism to the authors. Reviewers should clearly express their opinion supported by objective arguments.

Confidentiality

The review process is strictly confidential and should be treated as such by Reviewers. As the Author may have chosen to exclude some people from this process, no one who is not directly involved with the manuscript (including colleagues and other experts in the field) should be consulted by the Reviewer unless such consultations have first been discussed with the AE. Reviewers must not take any confidential information they have gained in the review process and use it before the paper is published. Even after publication, unless they have the permission of the Authors to use other information, Reviewers may only use publicly published data (i.e. the contents of the published article) and not information from any earlier drafts.

 Timely Review

Annals of Geophysics believes that an efficient editorial process that results in timely publication provides a valuable service both to Authors and to the scientific community at large.

Anonymity

Although Reviewers remain anonymous during the review process, they may waive this anonymity to promote open and transparent decision-making