Reviewer Guide to new peer review experience

You will receive an email from the journal, inviting you to review the manuscript. The email includes the paper's title, abstract, and the peer review deadline.

You can choose whether to accept or decline the invitation via the links in the email.

Both the links in the email direct you to EM, and the submission is available in your ‘New Reviewer Invitations’ folder.

If you agree to review, the submission appears in your ‘ Pending Assignments’ folder.

If you decline to review, you can add the reason to decline and suggest alternative reviewers.

To start your review, go to your ‘Pending Assignments’ folder in EM and access the manuscript you agreed to review.

Click the ‘View and review manuscript’ action link. This takes you directly to the new peer review experience, where you can read the manuscript and add your comments.

Before writing your reviewer comments, make sure you familiarize yourself with any journal-specific guidelines (these are noted in the journal’s guide for authors available on each journal's homepage. On our site How to conduct a review, you can find useful guidance to writing your review and what questions you can take into account while doing so.
IMPORTANT: When providing comments, do not include any personal information, such as your name, email address, or any identifying details in the text of your review. Your feedback must remain anonymous to the author.

Click the ‘Download manuscript’ button on the right side of the review page to view the manuscript.

To add comments to the author, navigate to the ‘Comments for author’ tab within the review interface. Click on this tab to open the comment box, where you can type your comments. Once you enter your comments and click ‘Post’ to submit them, the author can see your feedback.

1. Locate your previous comment in the ‘Comments for author’
2. Click on the three dots icon on the right-hand side of your comment, then select Edit comment.
3. Make the necessary changes in the text box that appears and click ‘Save’ to update your comment.

To add feedback that is only visible to the editor, click on the ‘Notes to editor only’ tab. Enter your comments in this section. These comments are confidential and are not visible to the author.

1. Navigate to the ‘Recommendations’
2. From the dropdown menu, select your overall recommendation for the manuscript. Additionally, you have the option to provide a manuscript rating to further specify your review.
3. Once you make your selections, ensure you save them by clicking on ‘Save’.

After you add your comments and select your recommendation, click on ‘Send review to editor’ to submit your review. Once the review is successfully submitted, a confirmation message appears, indicating that your review is sent to the editor.

After you submit your review, a confirmation page appears indicating that your review has been successfully submitted.

On this page, you will see an ORCID section on the right-hand side with the option “Add review to your record.”. Click “Add review” to proceed.

You will be asked to provide consent to update your ORCID record with your review activity. Select "Yes" to authorize Editorial Manager to deposit the reviewer credit to your ORCID record.

If you are not already signed in to ORCID, you may be prompted to complete a one-time ORCID authorization. Once authorized, your completed review will be added to your ORCID record.

All reviewer comments are visible to the authors.

Authors cannot see reviewer names or personal details, confidential comments to the editor, star ratings, or the recommendation term the reviewer has provided to the editor.

When reviewing a revised manuscript, you can see the comments you provided in the original submission, as well as comments from other reviewers.

1. Click ‘View and review manuscript’ to open the online peer review environment. From there, you can access the revised paper, review the author’s responses and revisions, refer to your earlier comments, and add your new feedback based on the updated version.
2. Once you complete your review, select your recommendation and click ‘Send review to editor’ to submit your updated feedback.

You can download the manuscript file and prepare your review report offline if you prefer. However, you must return to the new peer review experience in your browser to post your comments, provide your recommendation, and submit your completed review.

The new peer review experience is accessible only through a web browser on a desktop or laptop. You cannot view or submit your review using a mobile device.

There is a known issue with Safari users due to popup blockers in EM. This problem is scheduled to be fixed by the EM product team in the April release.

In the meantime, new peer review experience users on Mac with the latest version of Safari can follow these steps as a workaround:

1. Right-click on the tab URL.
2. Select "Settings for editorialmanager.com"
3. In the new popup, locate the "Pop-up Windows" row.
4. Click on the current value (e.g., "Block" or "Block and Notify") and select "Allow" from the dropdown menu.