Reviewer Guidelines

Article submitted to RW Materials should be innovative and original work of significance in the areas as described by the scope of the journal. The RW Materials operate a single-blind review process, in which the identities of the authors are open to the reviewers, and the identities of the reviewers are hidden from the authors. We use a wide range of sources to identify potential reviewers, including the editorial board, keyword search (Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar, Scifinder, etc.), personal knowledge, author suggestions, and bibliographic databases. Reviewers’ evaluations play a critical role in deciding whether a paper is to be accepted for publication or not. Routine and incremental work without significance - however competently researched and reported - should not be recommended for publication. Articles which rely excessively on supplementary information should not be recommended for publication. All of journals adhere to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Code of Conduct and BestPractice Guidelines (http://publicationethics.org). We strive to ensure that peer review is fair, unbiased and timely. Decisions to accept or reject a manuscript for publication are based on the manuscript’s importance, originality and clarity, and the study’s validity and its relevance to the remit of the journal.

Please inform the Editor who requested the review before accepting, if there is a conflict of interest (resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers); you are not able to referee with confidence; the work or a significant part of the work has been submitted or published before. If you feel a colleague is more qualified than you to review the paper, do not pass the manuscript on to that person without first requesting permission to do so from the editor. Your review and your recommendation should also be considered confidential.

Two parts will be available for you to input the comments: COMMENTS TO THE EDITOR and COMMENTS TO THE AUTHOR. Your Comments to the Editor will be submitted to the Handling Editor and the Editor-in-Chief only. These should include any possible conflicts of interest. Comments and constructive criticism of the manuscript should be placed in the Comments to the Author.

Referees have the responsibility to treat the manuscript as confidential. When preparing your report, please:

• Comment on the innovation, originality, significance and scientific reliability of the work;
• Indicate clearly whether the article should be rejected, revision (major or minor), accepted as it is, resubmitted after revisions. The recommendations needs be justified with detailed comments (with references, as appropriate) that will both help the Editor to make a decision on the article and the authors to improve it;
• Are the methods appropriate, scientifically sound, current, and described clearly enough thatsomeone else could repeat the work?
• Is the research ethical and have the appropriate approvals/consent been obtained?
• Are the references cited the most appropriate to support the manuscript? Are citations provided for all assertions of fact not supported by the data in this paper? Are any key citations missing? Any recommended references by the reviewer to be cited needs a justification.
• Consider the length of the manuscript, relative to the content. Should any portions of the paper should be expanded, condensed, combined, or deleted? Some information can be moved to the supporting materials, please advise in your comments.
• Do not include personal name or website in the comments.
• Biased comments or personal attacks are not allowed

We would greatly appreciate if you could review this paper in the required time. Please let us know if that will not be possible. Thank you very much for your assistance in evaluating this manuscript.

Stepwise Reviewer Guidelines:

A source of information, guidance and support for reviewers of RW Materials.

Step 1: Before begin

Before you accept or decline an invitation to review, consider the following important points:

• Does the article match your area of expertise? Only accept if you feel you can provide a high-quality review.
• Do you have a potential conflict of interest? If yes, please disclose this to the editor or editorial officer.
• Do you have sufficient time to review? Reviewing can need a lot of work - before you commit, make sure that you can meet the review deadlines.
• Do you need to find out more about reviewing and the peer review process? If so, use this link (https://publons.com/benefits/reviewers/how) to find out more information.
• Respond to the invitation as soon as you can (even if it is to decline) - a delay in your decision slows down the review process and means more waiting for the author. If you do decline the invitation,it would be helpful if you could provide suggestions for alternative reviewers.

Step 2: Managing your review

Confidential material

If you accept, you must treat the materials you receive as confidential documents. This means that you can't share them with anyone without prior authorization from the editor or editorial officer. Since peer review is confidential, you also must not share information about the review with anyone without permission from the editors or editorial officer. To contact the authors is prohibited during any stage of reviewing process.

How to access your review

Your review will be sent to you as a pdf file via email from RW Materials. You need to accept the review request and reply the email as Review Invitation Accepted.

Journal-specific instructions

When you sit down to write the review, make sure you familiarize yourself with any journal-specific guidelines (available as Guidelines on the journal's homepage). First, read the article. You might consider spot-checking major issues by choosing which section to read first.

Methodology

If the manuscript you are reviewing is reporting an experiment, check the methods section first. The following cases are considered :

• Major flaws and should be flagged
• Unsound methodology
• Discredited method
• Missing processes known to be influential on the area of reported research
• Reliability and repeability:
• Enough information should be provided for the future readers to make the reported experiments or theoretical simulation possible.
• A conclusion drawn in contradiction to the statistical or qualitative evidence reported in the manuscript.

For analytical papers, please examine the sampling report, which is mandated in time-dependent studies. For qualitative research, please make sure that a systematic data analysis is presented and sufficient descriptive elements with relevant quotes from interviews are listed in addition to the author's narrative.

Research data and visualization

Once you are satisfied with the methodology that is sufficiently robust, please examine any data in the form of figures, tables, or images. Authors may add research data, including data visualizations, in their submission to enable readers to interact and engage more closely with their research after publication. Please be aware that links to data might therefore be present in the submission files. These items should also receive your attention during the peer review process. Critical issues in research data, which are considered to be major flaws, can be related to insufficient data points, statistically non-significant variations, and unclear data tables.

Ethical considerations

Experiments including patient or animal data should properly be documented. Most journals require ethical approval by the author's host organization. Please check journal-specific guidelines for such cases (available from the journal's homepage.

Overview

If you don't spot any major flaws, take a break from the manuscript, giving you time to think. Consider the article from your own perspective, when you sit down to write the review, again make sure you familiarize yourself with any journalspecific guidelines (these will be noted in the journal's guide for authors).

Step 3: Structuring your review

Your review will help the editor to decide whether or not to publish the article. It will also aid the author and allow them to improve their manuscript. Giving your overall opinion and general observations of the article is essential. Your comments should be courteous and constructive, and should not include any ad hominem remarks or personal details including your name (unless the journal you are invited to review for employs an open peer review).

Providing insight into any deficiencies is important. You should explain and support your judgement so that both editors and authors are able to fully understand the reasoning behind your comments. You should indicate whether your comments are your own opinion or are reflected by the data and evidence.

Checklist

In the specific journal you are reviewing for, there might be a certain format or other instructions on how to structure your feedback. Below are some general tips on what to include/consider if no other guidelines apply.

View the checklist here:

• The topic of the paper should be within the scope of the journal
• The problems to be solved need be clearly defined
• The knowledge to be advanced need be clearly demonstrated
• Solid analysis should be made in the context of the literature
• No plagiarism allowed in any journal
• The language needs be acceptable for understanding

The format needs be followed according to the journal requirements, the best way is to refer to the recently published journal papers.

Your recommendation

When you make a recommendation, it is worth considering the categories, the editor will likely use for classifying the article:

Reject (explain your reasoning in your report)

Accept without revision

Revise either major or minor (explain the revision that is required, and indicate to the editor whether you would be happy to review the revised article). If you are recommending a revision, you must furnish the author with a clear, sound explanation of why this is necessary. Bear in mind that there will be the opportunity to direct separate comments to both the editor and author. Once you are ready to submit your report, follow the instructions in the email.

The final decision

The editor ultimately decides whether to accept or reject the article. The editor will weigh all views and may call for another opinion or ask the author for a revised paper before making a decision. The submission system provides reviewers with a notification of the final decision.

Step 4: After your review

Once you have delivered your review, you might want to make use of RW Materials reviewer recognition platform to ensure that you receive credit for your work. (Soon we will be officially parterned with Publons, Clarivate Web of Science). In the meantime, RW Publishers provides certificates, editor recognition as well as discounts for Research Wheel services. Your reviewing activities will be captured. The publisher will send an email about your reviewing history after every review completion by you and thus demonstrate your input to the peer review process as well as detailing your own articles, positions and editorial work. Do not forget that, even after finalizing your review, you must treat the article and any linked files or data as confidential documents. This means you must not share them or information about the review with anyone without prior authorization from the editor or editorial officer. Finally, we take the opportunity to thank you sincerely on behalf of the journal, editors and author(s) for the time you have taken to give your valuable input to the article.

For further inquiry: contact@rwpublisher.com about our reviewing process.