Reviewer Guidelines
These guidelines outline the responsibilities, standards, and review procedures for reviewers of Journal of Sport and Exercise Studies.
Peer reviewers play an essential role in maintaining the scholarly quality, methodological rigor, ethical integrity, and editorial standards of Journal of Sport and Exercise Studies. Reviewers are expected to provide fair, confidential, constructive, and evidence-based assessments of manuscripts submitted to the journal.
The journal normally uses a double-blind peer review model. Reviewers should evaluate manuscripts according to academic merit, relevance to the journal scope, originality, methodological soundness, ethical compliance, clarity of presentation, and contribution to sport and exercise studies.
Before Accepting a Review Invitation
Reviewers should accept a review invitation only when they are able to provide an informed, independent, and timely evaluation. Before accepting an invitation, reviewers should consider:
- Whether the manuscript falls within their area of expertise;
- Whether they can complete the review within the requested timeframe;
- Whether they have any real or perceived conflict of interest;
- Whether they can provide an objective and constructive assessment;
- Whether they can maintain the confidentiality of the manuscript and review process.
If a reviewer is unable to review the manuscript, they should decline the invitation as soon as possible. Where appropriate, they may suggest alternative qualified reviewers.
Review Timeline
Reviewers are normally asked to submit their review within 3–5 weeks after accepting the review invitation. If additional time is needed, reviewers should contact the Editorial Office or handling editor as early as possible.
Timely reviews are important because Journal of Sport and Exercise Studies is a quarterly journal. Delayed reviews may affect editorial decisions, author revision schedules, production planning, and assignment to the nearest available issue.
Confidentiality
Manuscripts under review are confidential documents. Reviewers must not share, copy, distribute, discuss, or use the manuscript or its contents outside the peer review process without permission from the editor.
Reviewers must not:
- Share the manuscript with colleagues, students, research assistants, or third parties without editorial permission;
- Use unpublished data, findings, ideas, images, methods, or arguments from the manuscript for personal or professional advantage;
- Contact the authors directly about the manuscript;
- Disclose review comments or editorial communications to unauthorized parties.
Conflicts of Interest
Reviewers must disclose any real, potential, or perceived conflict of interest that may affect their ability to provide an independent assessment. If a conflict exists, reviewers should decline the invitation or notify the handling editor immediately.
Conflicts of interest may include, but are not limited to:
- Recent or ongoing collaboration with the author or author group;
- Same institutional affiliation or recent institutional relationship;
- Supervisor, student, mentor, colleague, or close professional relationship;
- Personal relationship or academic competition;
- Financial, commercial, organizational, or funding-related interest;
- Any circumstance that may compromise objective judgment.
Main Review Criteria
| Criterion | Review Focus |
|---|---|
| Scope and Relevance | Whether the manuscript fits the journal’s focus on sport, exercise, physical activity, health, education, performance, behavior, society, or related interdisciplinary fields. |
| Originality | Whether the manuscript offers new evidence, interpretation, theory, method, synthesis, or applied insight. |
| Scholarly Contribution | Whether the manuscript makes a meaningful contribution to research, practice, education, policy, or theory. |
| Methodological Quality | Whether the research design, sampling, measures, procedures, data analysis, and interpretation are appropriate and transparent. |
| Ethical Compliance | Whether ethical approval, informed consent, participant protection, data privacy, and research integrity issues are adequately addressed. |
| Evidence and Interpretation | Whether findings are clearly presented, adequately supported, and interpreted without overstatement. |
| Writing and Presentation | Whether the manuscript is clearly written, logically organized, and presented in an academically appropriate manner. |
Structure of the Review Report
Reviewers are encouraged to structure their reports clearly. A useful review report normally includes:
- Brief summary: A concise summary of the manuscript’s topic, purpose, method, and main contribution;
- General evaluation: An overall assessment of the manuscript’s strengths, weaknesses, and suitability for the journal;
- Major comments: Essential issues that must be addressed before the manuscript can be considered for publication;
- Minor comments: Specific suggestions related to clarity, wording, formatting, references, tables, figures, or presentation;
- Ethical or integrity concerns: Any concerns about ethics, plagiarism, duplicate publication, data integrity, image manipulation, or conflicts of interest;
- Recommendation: A clear recommendation to the editor.
Recommendation Categories
| Recommendation | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Accept | The manuscript is suitable for publication with no or only very minor editorial changes. |
| Minor Revision | The manuscript is generally suitable but requires limited clarification, correction, or improvement. |
| Major Revision | The manuscript has potential but requires substantial revision before it can be reconsidered. |
| Revise and Resubmit | The manuscript requires extensive reworking and may need to be reconsidered as a substantially revised submission. |
| Reject | The manuscript is not suitable for publication due to scope mismatch, insufficient contribution, serious methodological problems, ethical concerns, or inadequate scholarly quality. |
The final editorial decision is made by the handling editor or Editor-in-Chief. Reviewer recommendations are advisory and are considered together with editorial judgment, journal scope, ethical standards, and the overall quality of the manuscript.
Constructive and Professional Feedback
Review comments should be respectful, specific, and useful. Reviewers should focus on the manuscript rather than the authors and should provide clear reasons for their evaluation.
- Major comments should be prioritized and clearly explained;
- Comments should distinguish between essential revisions and optional suggestions;
- Criticism should be evidence-based and professionally worded;
- Reviewers should avoid vague judgments that do not help authors revise the manuscript;
- Reviewers should not request unnecessary citations to their own work or to unrelated publications.
Ethical Concerns During Review
Reviewers should notify the editor if they identify possible ethical or research integrity concerns. These may include:
- Plagiarism or substantial text overlap;
- Duplicate or redundant publication;
- Data fabrication or data falsification;
- Image manipulation or inappropriate figure alteration;
- Undisclosed conflicts of interest;
- Inadequate ethical approval or informed consent;
- Concerns involving minors, athletes, students, patients, vulnerable groups, or sensitive data;
- Unsupported claims, misleading interpretation, or selective reporting.
Reviewers should not investigate authors independently or contact authors directly. Ethical concerns should be reported confidentially to the editor.
Use of Artificial Intelligence Tools by Reviewers
Reviewers must protect the confidentiality of manuscripts under review. Reviewers should not upload manuscript files, unpublished data, figures, tables, review materials, or confidential editorial communications to public or third-party artificial intelligence tools where confidentiality, data security, or intellectual property protection cannot be assured.
If reviewers use any digital or automated tools to assist with language, organization, or analysis of their own review comments, they remain fully responsible for the accuracy, confidentiality, integrity, and professionalism of the submitted review.
Reviewing Revised Manuscripts
Reviewers may be invited to evaluate revised manuscripts, particularly after major revision. When reviewing a revised manuscript, reviewers should assess whether the authors have responded adequately to previous comments and whether the revised manuscript has improved sufficiently.
Reviewers should focus on unresolved major issues and should avoid raising entirely new concerns unless they are important for scholarly quality, ethical compliance, or publication suitability.
Reviewer Recognition
The journal values the contribution of peer reviewers. Reviewers may receive acknowledgement from the Editorial Office where appropriate, subject to confidentiality requirements and journal policy.
Reviewer recognition does not affect editorial independence and does not disclose confidential manuscript information.
Reviewer Responsibilities Summary
Reviewers should provide fair, confidential, timely, independent, and constructive evaluations.
Reviewers should disclose conflicts of interest and decline review invitations when they cannot provide an objective assessment.
Reviewers should report ethical concerns to the editor and avoid using manuscript content outside the peer review process.