Peer Review Process

Peer Review Process

Introduction

The peer review process ensures that research articles published in the Ticino Medical Tribune (TMT) journal meet the highest quality standards.

The peer review process involves a critical evaluation of manuscripts by experts in the field, aiming to:

  • Ensure the quality, accuracy, and scientific relevance of the content.
  • Provide authors with constructive feedback to improve their work.
  • Assist the editor in making informed decisions regarding publication.

The journal adopts a "single-blind" review model: reviewers remain anonymous, while the authors' identities are known.

Manuscripts submitted undergo review by external experts or qualified editorial board members (typically two reviewers), ensuring a rigorous and impartial assessment based on scientific merit and originality.

Authors cannot recommend reviewers. The entire article, including any supplementary material, undergoes peer review. Anonymous reviews are shared with the authors but are not published alongside the articles.

1. Initial Evaluation

The Editor-in-Chief initially evaluates all submissions.

Manuscripts rejected at this stage do not present original research, have significant scientific shortcomings regarding research questions and hypotheses, data collection and analysis, and discussion, or are characterized by inadequate language in terms of structure, jargon, or style. Additionally, manuscripts that do not fall within the scope of TMT are also rejected. Corresponding authors of rejected manuscripts will be informed within two weeks of submission.

Manuscripts that meet the minimum criteria are sent for review by at least two anonymous experts.

Reviewers are asked to assess whether the manuscript represents original research, is methodologically sound and robust, includes a relevant literature review, presents clear and concise results, offers a detailed discussion based on research questions and hypotheses, and provides practical implications and suggestions for future research. This review phase takes approximately 4-5 weeks.

2. Evaluation Criteria

  • The title accurately reflects the article’s topic.
  • The abstract correctly summarizes the article, considering purpose, design/methodology/approach, results, practical implications, and originality/value.
  • The introduction adequately presents the topic, summarizes recent studies on the subject, identifies gaps in current understanding or conflicting knowledge, states the research problem, argues for the originality of research objectives, demonstrating the need for investigation in the area of interest, highlighting novelty and reasons for conducting the research, and stating objectives.
  • Overall quality, scientific originality, and relevance to theory and practice.
  • Contribution to the field, complementarity, interdisciplinarity, and awareness of previous research.
  • Literature review, critical discussion of past empirical studies, and identification of gaps.
  • Theoretical framework and conceptual rationale: clear definition of research questions and hypotheses.
  • Research methodology: context, rationale, objectives, data collection procedure, research design, and methods appropriate to the research question, sufficient details for replication, sampling procedure, and potential biases.
  • Data analysis: clarity of analyses and results, adequacy of interpretations and assessments, correspondence between presented results and methods used, consistency between data described in the text and those in figures and tables.
  • Discussion: logically explains results, compares findings with current research in the field, discusses implications for future research and practical applications, draws conclusions based on data and results, and includes study limitations.
  • Language errors: the style must be clear, concise, and of an academic level.
  • Usefulness and quality of images and figures: correctly represent data, easy to interpret and understand.
  • Style and citations: no missing references, correct citations, use of the most recent sources.

3. Reviewers’ recommendations

3.1. General recommendations

  • Accept
  • Minor revisions
  • Major revisions
  • Reject and request a new submission
  • Reject

3.2. Recommendations on written language quality:

  • Not suitable for publication unless substantial revisions and editing are made
  • Requires some corrections and improvements before publication
  • Acceptable

3.3. Recommendations on the level of interest:

  • It is an outstanding article
  • It is important in its field
  • Its results are relevant to those with closely related research interests
  • It is an article of limited interest

Reviewers may provide confidential comments to editors.

Reviewers must provide comments, preferably specific and detailed, to the authors.

4. Final decision

Reviewers provide recommendations to the Editor-in-Chief, who is responsible for the final decision to accept or reject the manuscript.