Three Teachings Studies: Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism (TTS) recognizes the essential contribution of independent peer reviewers to the quality, reliability, and intellectual development of scholarly research. Reviewers provide specialist assessments that inform editorial decisions, identify substantive strengths and limitations, and support constructive academic dialogue. Research Articles ordinarily undergo double-blind peer review by at least two independent external reviewers, while other scholarly contributions may receive editorial assessment or specialist review according to their nature. These guidelines explain reviewer eligibility, invitation acceptance, evaluation standards, report preparation, editorial recommendations, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, artificial intelligence, and the submission of completed reviews through the journal's online review system.

The Role and Purpose of Peer Review

Peer review is a process of independent scholarly assessment designed to assist editors in determining whether a submitted manuscript meets the journal's academic standards. It also provides authors with reasoned criticism and recommendations that may improve the accuracy, clarity, evidence, and scholarly contribution of their work.

TTS expects reviewers to uphold the following principles:

• Scholarly Independence: Evaluate the manuscript according to its academic merits, independently of inappropriate personal, financial, institutional, or ideological influence.
• Subject Expertise: Apply relevant disciplinary knowledge and recognize the limits of personal expertise.
• Evidence-Based Judgment: Support important criticisms and recommendations with clear reasoning, textual evidence, relevant scholarship, or appropriate methodological considerations.
• Constructive Evaluation: Identify both the strengths of the manuscript and the improvements necessary for scholarly publication.
• Professional Respect: Communicate criticism in a precise, impartial, and respectful academic manner.
• Confidentiality: Protect unpublished research, reviewer identities, and confidential editorial communications.
• Editorial Accountability: Provide an independent recommendation while recognizing that the final publication decision belongs to the responsible editor.

Reviewers are not expected to serve as co-authors, copyeditors, or guarantors of the accuracy of every aspect of a manuscript. Their principal responsibility is to provide a competent and appropriately thorough scholarly evaluation within the scope of the assigned review.

Reviewer Eligibility and Acceptance of Invitations

The editorial office invites reviewers according to their relevant expertise, scholarly experience, independence, and capacity to provide a timely assessment. Reviewers may come from different academic institutions, disciplines, countries, and intellectual traditions, provided that their qualifications correspond to the manuscript's research requirements.

Before accepting an invitation, a prospective reviewer should consider:

• Relevant Expertise: Whether the manuscript falls sufficiently within the reviewer's academic competence, including its subject, methods, sources, language, and historical or cultural context.
• Availability: Whether the reviewer can complete a meaningful evaluation within the deadline specified in the invitation.
• Independence: Whether relevant personal, institutional, academic, professional, or financial relationships could compromise impartiality.
• Confidentiality: Whether the reviewer can protect the manuscript and related editorial materials throughout the assignment.
• Capacity for Constructive Assessment: Whether the reviewer can offer sufficiently detailed and professionally expressed comments useful to both the editor and the author.

Reviewers who cannot provide an appropriate evaluation should decline the invitation promptly. A reviewer who possesses expertise in only part of a manuscript may inform the editorial office of the relevant limitation; the responsible editor will determine whether a partial specialist assessment would be useful.

Acceptance of a review invitation constitutes an agreement to follow the journal's applicable confidentiality, ethical, and professional requirements. Reviewers must not delegate an assignment to another person without prior authorization from the editorial office.

Peer Review Model and Contribution Categories

TTS ordinarily applies double-blind external peer review to Research Articles. Under this model, the identities of authors and reviewers are concealed from one another during the evaluation process.

Research Articles normally receive assessments from at least two independent external reviewers. Where reports differ substantially or additional expertise is required, the responsible editor may seek clarification or request further specialist assessment.

Other scholarly contributions may follow different evaluation arrangements:

• Review Articles: Evaluation of scholarly coverage, critical synthesis, engagement with existing debates, and the originality of the review's analytical contribution.
• Book Reviews: Assessment of accuracy, critical engagement, fairness, contextual understanding, and usefulness to the journal's readership.
• Translation and Annotation: Assessment of source identification, translation reliability, interpretive choices, philological accuracy, annotations, and original scholarly value.
• Forum Contributions: Evaluation of clarity, relevance, evidentiary support, scholarly reasoning, and the contribution to informed academic discussion.
• Documents and Textual Notes: Assessment of documentary authenticity, textual evidence, source attribution, editorial principles, and the significance of the material.
• Lectures: Assessment of scholarly substance, accuracy, clarity, and suitability for publication where editorial or specialist evaluation is requested.

Reviewers should apply the criteria appropriate to the assigned submission type. An editorially reviewed contribution must not be assumed to have undergone the same external evaluation procedure as a Research Article. Further information is provided in the Peer Review Policy.

Core Scholarly Evaluation Criteria

Reviewers should evaluate manuscripts according to the nature of the contribution and the standards of the relevant scholarly field. The criteria below provide a common framework; they are not intended to impose identical research methods or article structures on all submissions.

Relevance and Journal Scope

Does the manuscript address issues relevant to Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism, or their philosophical, historical, religious, social, literary, and cultural contexts? Does it offer a contribution appropriate to the journal's scholarly readership?

A manuscript may focus on one tradition or examine relationships among multiple traditions. Reviewers must not require discussion of all three traditions when such comparison is unnecessary for the stated research question.

Originality and Scholarly Contribution

Does the manuscript provide original findings, evidence, interpretations, conceptual clarification, textual analysis, translation, critical synthesis, or another meaningful scholarly contribution? Does it sufficiently distinguish its contribution from existing scholarship?

Research Questions and Argumentation

Are the research question, objectives, or central scholarly claims clearly established? Is the argument coherent, logically developed, and supported by evidence appropriate to the manuscript's approach? Are the conclusions proportionate to the analysis?

Sources and Documentary Reliability

Are primary and secondary sources selected, cited, and interpreted appropriately? Are classical texts, manuscripts, commentaries, archival records, translations, and other relevant materials identified accurately? Are important uncertainties, textual variants, and source limitations acknowledged?

Methodological and Analytical Rigor

Is the selected research method appropriate to the scholarly problem? Are analytical procedures, conceptual assumptions, evidentiary standards, and relevant limitations explained sufficiently for informed evaluation?

Reviewers should not impose empirical, quantitative, philosophical, historical, or textual methods on a manuscript merely because those methods are familiar or personally preferred. Methodological criticism must be related to the manuscript's research objectives and the standards of its field.

Engagement with Existing Scholarship

Does the manuscript engage with relevant scholarly discussions, major interpretations, and important source materials? Are competing views represented fairly? Does the author demonstrate an adequate understanding of the research literature?

Reviewers may recommend additional references when they are directly relevant to the manuscript's accuracy or scholarly contribution. Recommendations must not be used to increase citations to a reviewer's own publications or to unrelated work.

Historical, Linguistic, and Cultural Context

Does the manuscript appropriately situate its subject in relevant historical, intellectual, linguistic, institutional, geographical, or cultural contexts? Are significant distinctions between periods, communities, traditions, and source types recognized?

Clarity, Organization, and Scholarly Presentation

Is the manuscript clearly structured and sufficiently readable for evaluation? Are important terms defined when necessary? Are tables, figures, quotations, transliterations, and translations presented consistently and accurately?

TTS adopts a flexible manuscript formatting policy. Reviewers should not require a particular font, page margin, line spacing, or manuscript template. The journal does, however, require Chicago Notes and Bibliography for citations and references. Reviewers may identify substantive documentation problems while leaving routine production formatting to the editorial process.

Discipline-Specific Evaluation Considerations

The journal welcomes scholarship employing different disciplinary methods and intellectual traditions. Reviewers should ensure that the evaluation is appropriate to the actual research approach rather than assuming that all submissions must follow a single model of academic inquiry.

• Philosophical and Conceptual Research: Assess conceptual precision, logical coherence, interpretive justification, engagement with relevant philosophical traditions, and the distinction between textual evidence and philosophical reconstruction.
• Historical and Intellectual History Research: Examine chronological accuracy, source criticism, contextualization, historiographical engagement, and the relationship between historical evidence and explanatory claims.
• Philology and Textual Scholarship: Consider source editions, manuscript witnesses, textual variants, attribution questions, linguistic accuracy, editorial principles, and the reliability of textual reconstruction.
• Religious and Ritual Studies: Assess the treatment of practices, institutions, communities, ritual traditions, and the relationship between normative texts and lived religious experience.
• Comparative and Cross-Traditional Studies: Evaluate the justification for comparison, conceptual equivalence, historical contact, contextual distinctions, and the treatment of similarities and differences among traditions.
• Translation and Annotation: Consider source identification, translation accuracy, terminology, explanatory notes, interpretive transparency, and the originality of the scholarly apparatus.
• Material, Musical, and Artistic Research: Assess the accuracy of source identification, contextual interpretation, documentation of objects or performances, and the use of relevant visual, acoustic, or material evidence.
• Empirical and Fieldwork Research: Evaluate the suitability of research methods, transparency of evidence, treatment of participants, analytical limitations, and compliance with applicable ethical requirements.

Manuscripts may draw on more than one disciplinary approach. In such cases, reviewers should evaluate the integration and justification of the methods actually used rather than applying unrelated standards.

Differences in philosophical interpretation, religious belief, theoretical orientation, or methodological preference do not independently establish scholarly deficiencies. Criticism should focus on evidence, reasoning, disciplinary appropriateness, and the quality of the contribution.

Evaluating Multilingual Manuscripts

TTS accepts scholarly contributions in English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese. The journal seeks reviewers who possess the linguistic competence necessary to evaluate the manuscript and its principal research materials.

Reviewers should consider language quality in relation to scholarly clarity and the accurate communication of arguments. Non-native language usage should not be treated as evidence of inferior scholarship when the manuscript remains sufficiently understandable for academic evaluation.

For non-English manuscripts, the journal requires an English title and abstract. Reviewers may identify substantive inaccuracies, ambiguities, or omissions in these materials when relevant to the manuscript's international scholarly presentation.

When a significant part of the evidence depends on a language, script, or textual tradition outside the reviewer's competence, the reviewer should disclose that limitation to the editor. Reviewers must not claim to have verified original-language evidence they have not been able to examine.

Preparing a Scholarly Review Report

TTS does not require reviewers to use a separate standardized review document. A review may be entered directly into the journal's designated online review fields. Where appropriate, reviewers may upload a supplementary Word or PDF report through the authorized review workflow.

A substantive review report should ordinarily include the following elements:

1. Brief Manuscript Summary: Identify the subject, central argument, research approach, and claimed scholarly contribution. The summary should accurately represent the submission without substituting for critical evaluation.
2. Overall Scholarly Assessment: Explain the manuscript's principal strengths and limitations, its relationship to existing scholarship, and its potential contribution to the journal.
3. Major Comments: Identify substantive concerns involving originality, argumentation, methodology, source reliability, interpretation, documentation, or conclusions. Explain why these concerns matter and what type of revision would address them.
4. Minor Comments: Identify limited corrections or improvements involving clarity, organization, terminology, citation accuracy, presentation, or other nonfundamental issues.
5. Editorial Recommendation: Select the recommendation that best reflects the assessment, ensuring that it is supported by the substance and seriousness of the comments.

The review should make a meaningful distinction between revisions necessary for scholarly validity and improvements that are desirable but not essential. Authors should be able to understand the problems identified and the reasoning behind the proposed changes.

Where useful, reviewers may cite specific sections, paragraphs, pages, manuscript passages, or relevant external scholarship. Comments should be sufficiently precise to assist the author and the editor without requiring an exhaustive line-by-line copyedit of the manuscript.

Review reports should not contain unnecessary personal remarks, unsupported allegations, coercive citation requests, or demands for changes based only on the reviewer's preferred theoretical framework. Reviewers should avoid recommending rejection based solely on remediable presentation problems where the central scholarly contribution is otherwise sufficiently strong.

Comments for Authors and Confidential Comments for Editors

Where the review workflow provides separate fields, reviewers should distinguish comments intended for the author from confidential information intended only for the responsible editor.

Comments for Authors should ordinarily contain:

• The scholarly strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript.
• Substantive questions about evidence, argumentation, methods, or interpretation.
• Necessary and recommended revisions.
• Relevant explanations that enable the author to respond constructively.

Confidential Comments for Editors may include:

• Relevant concerns regarding reviewer independence or competing interests.
• Specific suspected publication ethics violations requiring confidential assessment.
• Material limitations in the reviewer's competence or ability to verify important evidence.
• Other editorial considerations that cannot appropriately be communicated through the author-facing report.

Confidential comments must not be used to conceal essential scholarly criticisms from authors when those criticisms can reasonably be communicated without compromising confidentiality or an ethical assessment.

Reviewers should avoid placing identifying information in author-facing comments or attachments under the double-blind review model. Any confidential allegation must be supported by specific information where possible and should not be presented as a proven finding before appropriate editorial examination.

Editorial Recommendations

After completing the assessment, reviewers should select the recommendation available in the journal's review workflow that most accurately reflects their scholarly judgment.

The exact wording and available options in the journal's online review system may differ from these general categories. Where the interface provides a recommendation such as resubmission for review, the reviewer should select the available option that best reflects the extent of revision and the need for further evaluation.

A recommendation must be consistent with the substance of the review report. For example, extensive unresolved problems affecting the central argument should not be described as minor corrections solely because the reviewer wishes to encourage publication.

Reviewer recommendations are advisory. The responsible editor considers the manuscript, reviewer reports, revision history, journal policies, and other relevant scholarly circumstances before issuing an editorial decision. The editor may request additional assessment where reports conflict or specialized questions remain unresolved.

Confidentiality and Double-Blind Anonymity

Manuscripts received for review constitute confidential, unpublished scholarly materials. Reviewers must use the manuscript and accompanying information solely for the purposes authorized by the journal.

Reviewers must observe the following safeguards:

• Manuscript Confidentiality: Do not share, distribute, publish, reproduce, or disclose submitted manuscripts or supplementary materials outside the authorized review process.
• Protection of Unpublished Research: Do not appropriate unpublished arguments, sources, translations, findings, methods, or other intellectual contributions for personal or professional use.
• Author Anonymity: Do not deliberately investigate or seek to establish the identity of anonymous authors. Where authorship becomes apparent and may affect impartiality, inform the responsible editor.
• Reviewer Anonymity: Do not reveal reviewer identity in material intended for authors under double-blind review. Check uploaded files and comments for identifying details where necessary.
• No Unauthorized Delegation: Do not involve students, colleagues, collaborators, or other individuals in the review without prior editorial authorization and appropriate confidentiality arrangements.
• No Unauthorized Communication: Do not contact authors directly about an active anonymous review or independently circulate confidential editorial comments.
• Continuing Obligations: Maintain the confidentiality of protected material after completing, declining, or withdrawing from a review assignment.

Complete anonymity cannot always be guaranteed in highly specialized areas, particularly when research has been presented previously or involves distinctive source collections. Reviewers must nonetheless uphold the journal's procedures and disclose circumstances that may compromise an impartial assessment.

Detailed requirements are available in the Confidentiality & Ethics policy.

Conflicts of Interest and Reviewer Recusal

Reviewers must disclose actual, potential, or reasonably perceived conflicts of interest that could materially influence their evaluation. A relevant conflict should be reported before accepting an assignment or promptly after its discovery.

Examples include:

• Recent or continuing co-authorship, close collaboration, supervision, or mentorship relationships.
• Personal, family, or adversarial relationships that may interfere with independent judgment.
• Financial, institutional, or commercial interests directly connected with the manuscript or its conclusions.
• Direct participation in the underlying research or preparation of the manuscript.
• Other material circumstances creating a significant interest in the outcome of the evaluation.

A potential conflict does not automatically constitute misconduct or require recusal in every case. The responsible editor assesses the circumstances and determines whether disclosure, reassignment, additional safeguards, or withdrawal from the assignment is necessary.

A reviewer's religious beliefs, philosophical commitments, theoretical orientation, or legitimate academic disagreement do not independently constitute a disqualifying conflict. The relevant question is whether a particular interest or relationship materially undermines impartial evaluation.

Reviewers whose independence is materially compromised should decline or withdraw from the assignment in consultation with the editorial office. They must not continue a conflicted review without informing the responsible editor.

Artificial Intelligence and Responsible Review Practices

TTS recognizes that digital tools may support certain scholarly and editorial activities. However, peer review requires independent human scholarly judgment, and reviewers remain accountable for the content, accuracy, confidentiality, and integrity of their assessments.

• Confidentiality: Reviewers must not upload unpublished manuscripts, confidential review materials, identifiable submission content, or editorial correspondence to external generative AI services without explicit authorization and appropriate safeguards.
• Human Evaluation: AI-generated assessments must not replace the reviewer's own reading, source examination, disciplinary reasoning, and scholarly judgment.
• Verification: Reviewers must independently verify factual assertions, source references, and criticisms incorporated into their reports.
• Transparency: Authorized substantive AI assistance affecting the preparation of a review must be disclosed to the editorial office.
• No Fabricated Evidence: Review reports must not contain invented references, fabricated source comparisons, misleading translations, or unsupported claims presented as verified findings.

Reviewers should not assume that uploading a manuscript to an external AI tool is permissible merely because the service is widely used or offers general confidentiality statements. Authorization and appropriate protection of the journal's confidential materials remain necessary.

AI-detection outputs or automated similarity results do not independently establish misconduct. Reviewers should report specific evidence and allow the editorial office to determine the need for further investigation.

Research Integrity and Reporting Ethical Concerns

Reviewers should notify the responsible editor when they identify credible concerns involving plagiarism, redundant publication, fabricated references, unreliable evidence, falsified source materials, manipulated peer review, or other potential violations of scholarly integrity.

Where concerns arise, reviewers should:

• Describe the concern clearly and identify the specific material involved.
• Provide verifiable examples or references where reasonably available.
• Distinguish factual inaccuracies from interpretive disagreement or suspected misconduct.
• Communicate sensitive allegations through confidential editorial channels.
• Avoid making unsupported accusations or declaring guilt before an appropriate assessment.
• Respect the rights and confidentiality of the individuals involved.

The journal requires authors to undertake preliminary similarity screening and ordinarily maintain a total similarity index below 15%, excluding references and bibliography. Reviewers are not required to conduct their own automated similarity checks. They may nevertheless report clearly identified overlap or source misappropriation when relevant evidence is encountered during normal evaluation.

Reviewers are not responsible for conducting independent disciplinary investigations, contacting an author's institution without authorization, or determining misconduct sanctions. The editorial office evaluates credible reports under the journal's publication ethics procedures.

Further information is available in the Publication Ethics and Plagiarism & Similarity Screening policies.

Review Deadlines and Extensions

TTS ordinarily requests that reviewers complete and submit their reports within four weeks after accepting a review invitation, unless a different deadline is specified by the editorial office for the particular assignment.

The four-week period refers to the reviewer's assigned reporting window. It does not include reviewer recruitment, initial manuscript screening, or other editorial processing stages.

The journal aims to complete first-round peer review of Research Articles within approximately 8–12 weeks from initial submission, including the initial editorial screening period. This is an overall editorial target and should not be confused with the deadline for an individual reviewer.

Reviewers should:

• Respond to invitations without unnecessary delay.
• Confirm their ability to complete the review within the requested timeframe.
• Notify the editorial office promptly if unforeseen circumstances affect availability.
• Request a reasonable extension as early as possible when additional time is necessary.
• Inform the editorial office if the assignment cannot be completed, allowing alternative arrangements to be made.

Extensions are considered according to the manuscript's needs, the editorial schedule, and the circumstances of the reviewer. The journal does not regard a late report as automatically invalid, but timely communication is essential to avoiding unnecessary delays for authors.

Submitting a Review Through the Journal's Online Review System

TTS manages reviewer invitations, assignments, reports, recommendations, and related communications through the journal's official online review system. Reviewers should follow the instructions provided in their assignment and submit the completed review through the designated review workflow.

The review process generally involves the following steps:

1. Access the Invitation: Open the invitation from TTS and follow the provided review link or access the assignment using the journal's official online review system.
2. Accept or Decline: Confirm whether the assignment can be accepted after considering expertise, availability, and relevant conflicts of interest.
3. Access the Review Materials: Read the assigned manuscript, available supplementary materials, and any relevant instructions supplied by the responsible editor.
4. Prepare the Scholarly Assessment: Evaluate the manuscript according to the appropriate disciplinary standards and the journal's review criteria.
5. Enter Review Comments: Provide the assessment through the designated review fields, distinguishing author-facing comments from confidential editorial comments where the system permits.
6. Attach Optional Supporting Files: Upload an annotated manuscript or separate Word or PDF review document where useful and supported by the review workflow. Additional attachments are not required unless specifically requested.
7. Select the Recommendation: Choose the available recommendation that best corresponds to the scholarly assessment.
8. Submit the Completed Review: Verify the comments, confidentiality of uploaded files, supporting materials, and recommendation before confirming submission through the system.

No separate review report template is mandatory. Reviewers may enter their comments directly into the system. Where a separate document provides clearer presentation of extensive comments, it may be uploaded through the authorized review function.

Reviewers should ordinarily not submit full reports as standard email attachments. If technical difficulties prevent access or submission, they should contact the editorial office for assistance rather than circulating confidential material through an unauthorized alternative channel.

Reviewer Login: Access the Journal's Online Review System

Reviewers who receive a direct invitation link should use that link according to the instructions supplied with the assignment. Available review functions and interface labels may depend on the individual assignment and the reviewer's account permissions.

Reviewing Revised Manuscripts

Reviewers may be invited to assess a revised version of a manuscript when the responsible editor determines that additional specialist evaluation is necessary. Re-review may be particularly relevant after major revisions affecting the central argument, research methods, source evidence, or interpretation.

When evaluating a revision, reviewers should consider:

• Whether the author has addressed the substantive concerns raised during the earlier assessment.
• Whether the revised evidence and analysis adequately support the manuscript's claims.
• Whether the author's explanations for declining particular recommendations are academically reasonable.
• Whether new material introduces significant questions that require clarification or further evaluation.
• Whether previously identified concerns have been resolved sufficiently for the relevant editorial decision.

Reviewers should distinguish unresolved substantive problems from matters of personal preference. Repeated requests for changes already addressed adequately should be avoided unless genuinely new evidence or significant scholarly concerns justify further consideration.

The responsible editor determines whether minor revisions can be assessed editorially or whether additional external review is necessary. A reviewer is not automatically entitled or required to review every subsequent version of a manuscript.

Reviewer Recognition and Professional Conduct

TTS values the voluntary scholarly contributions of reviewers and recognizes peer review as an important form of academic service. The journal seeks to maintain respectful and professional communication with reviewers throughout the editorial process.

Reviewers may document their participation in scholarly service records where doing so does not disclose confidential information or compromise the anonymity of the review. Any public acknowledgment or confirmation of reviewing activity must respect the journal's confidentiality requirements and the circumstances of the individual assignment.

The journal does not require reviewers to disclose the titles, authors, confidential contents, or outcomes of manuscripts they have reviewed. Review assignments should not be represented as public endorsements of the final published article or the views of its authors.

Reviewers are encouraged to approach differing scholarly positions with intellectual openness while maintaining rigorous standards of evidence, reasoning, and professional responsibility.

Related Policies and Ethical Guidance

Reviewers should consult the following policies where relevant to their assignments:

• Peer Review Policy — Review procedures, editorial independence, reviewer recommendations, and decision-making authority.
• Confidentiality & Ethics — Protection of unpublished research, anonymity, conflicts of interest, and responsible evaluation.
• Publication Ethics — Academic integrity, editorial responsibilities, misconduct assessment, and post-publication procedures.
• Author Ethical Responsibilities — Originality, authorship, source documentation, disclosures, and research ethics.
• Plagiarism & Similarity Screening — Originality concerns, textual overlap, attribution, and editorial screening.
• Manuscript Formatting Guidelines — Mandatory Chicago citation standards and manuscript preparation requirements.
• Publication Process & Timeline — Editorial processing targets, revision stages, and publication scheduling.
• COPE Core Practices — International guidance relating to responsible scholarly publishing.

The journal's review standards are informed by recognized principles of responsible scholarly publishing. References to external guidance do not constitute a claim of formal membership, accreditation, or endorsement by the organizations providing that guidance.

Editorial Communication and Reviewer Assistance

Reviewers may contact the editorial office concerning invitations, deadlines, manuscript access, conflicts of interest, confidentiality requirements, technical difficulties, or other matters arising during the review process.

The editorial email address is intended for inquiries, review-related clarification, and administrative or technical assistance. Completed review reports and recommendations should ordinarily be submitted through the journal's designated online review workflow unless an alternative procedure has been expressly authorized by the editorial office.