Guidelines and instructions for reviewers

How to conduct a peer review for TECNOCIENCIA CHIHUAHUA

The reviewer's report should focus on a comprehensive and constructive critique of the manuscript, going beyond a report of a few short sentences.

We encourage reviewers to help authors improve their manuscripts. The review should provide constructive feedback to the authors, especially if revisions are recommended.

If reviewers have comments that they do not wish to share with the author, these should be included in the Associate Editor's confidential comments section.

To ensure the integrity of anonymous peer review, every effort should be made to prevent authors from knowing the identity of reviewers and vice versa. To this end, please change the username to "reviewer" when commenting on the paper.

Review expectations may vary from discipline to discipline. However, the following are some of the key aspects that reviewers should assess:

Title

Check that:

  • Adequately describes the main content of the paper.
  • No more than 20 words.

Keywords

Ensure that:

  • Indicate the content of the post and contain a maximum of six words (single or compound).
  • Are useful for identifying the gist of an article.

Summary

Examine this:

  • It has a maximum of 200 words, not counting prepositions or articles.
  • It is presented in a single paragraph.
  • Include the main elements of the work: aims, methods and results. The results should make up at least 50% of the abstract, highlighting the most relevant ones.
  • Be clear and concise, as the abstract is often the only thing that is read when consulting and citing a publication.
  • Include the scientific names of all species mentioned.

It is recommended that the referee review the abstract once the full article has been reviewed.

Introduction

Inspect that:

  • Contains the specific background and rationale for the topic, presented in a clear and orderly manner; supported by appropriate bibliographic references.
  • Objectives and hypotheses are clearly stated.
  • Most references are recent (less than 10 years old).
  • References are specific to the topic, eliminating those which in your opinion are superfluous or appear to simulate false scholarship.
  • The bibliography does not appear as an aimless list of index cards or use 'multiple citations' to support a concept, as this only gives the appearance of an extensive literature review. As a general rule, a maximum of three citations should be sufficient to support a claim.
  • Do not use citations that are difficult or impossible to consult, such as course notes, mimeographed information and technical reports, as these are not verifiable or accessible to most readers. See the Authors Guide for possible exceptions.
  • Variables generated by transformations, combinations or relationships of one or more directly measured variables are also described with their equation and bibliographic reference, if available.
  • If abbreviations are used for variables, they are defined in this section (and not in the Results section), even if they are commonly used in a scientific discipline.
  • The materials and methods used are consistent with the stated aims or hypotheses. A lack of correspondence between methods and objectives should be a serious reason for rejection.
  • A detailed description of a methodology will only be provided if it is an innovation. If it is an innovation, it should be described in sufficient detail so that it can be replicated or reproduced by another researcher.
  • Do not include descriptions of common field protocols.
  • No analysis of variance tables of commonly used experimental designs.

Results and discussion

Make sure that:

  • They are presented in an orderly, clear and concise manner.
  • The description of results does not repeat information in tables or figures.
  • Include a discussion of the results, consisting of an appropriate interpretation and a comparison of the most relevant results with those of other authors who have worked on a similar topic in the same or other species. Failure to do so is sufficient reason to reject a paper.
  • All data should be legible. It is not uncommon to find letters or numbers that are too small, blurred or confusing.
  • Tables and figures should be understandable without reading the text.
  • Tables and figures should not be overloaded with information. There are excellent texts on how to present tables and figures in a scientific article.
  • The results are consistent with the objectives and methods described.

Conclusions

In this section, the contributions to knowledge resulting from the research are highlighted and should be verified:

  • Speculation or inference that is not substantiated in the text is omitted.
  • Conclusions are not numbered.
  • It does not include bibliographic references.

Literature cited

Confirm this:

  • Each reference contains all the information required by the Writers' Guide, in the correct order and with the correct punctuation. It is very common for the page numbers of the books consulted to be missing, for the order of initials in the names of authors to be changed, and for the title of the book or the name of the publisher to be omitted in the case of book chapters.
  • References appear in alphabetical order and chronological suborder.
  • Listed citations are referenced in the text, and vice versa, and that names and years match each time they are cited.

In order to assist authors in receiving timely reviews, reviewers should submit their review via the manuscript tracking system on or before the agreed deadline. Reviewers should contact TECNOCIENCIA CHIHUAHUA if they are unable to meet the deadline so that an alternative date can be arranged.

Reviewers are encouraged to focus their constructive criticism on the scientific aspects of the manuscript, including the soundness of the methodology and whether the conclusions can be supported by the results. They may also comment on the novelty and potential impact of the work. At the end of their review, reviewers are asked to recommend one of the following actions: