Peer Review Process

Suitable submissions


When an article is submitted to Glossa Psycholinguistics, the Editors-in-Chief first decide whether the focus and scope of the submission is suitable for the journal. If the submission is deemed unsuitable, the author will be informed within a week. If the submission is in line with our focus and scope, the Editors-in-Chief will assign one of the Editors to act as Handling Editor for the submission. All submissions are automatically checked with plagiarism software.

The editors of Glossa Psycholinguistics ask that authors declare whether a paper has been previously submitted elsewhere, as well as provide details of what the outcome of that process was, and how subsequent revisions have taken into account those reviews. Glossa Psycholinguistics has a policy of rejecting papers that do not sufficiently respond to reviews from previous submission processes, unless authors are able to explain and justify why they did not adapt their work.

The journal is happy to accept submissions of papers that have been loaded onto preprint servers or personal websites, presented at conferences, or disseminated through other informal communication channels. These formats are not considered prior publications, although the authors must have retained the copyright. Authors are encouraged to create a link from any prior posting of their paper to the final published version journaling Glossa Psycholinguistics, if possible.

The reviewing process


Within a week after being assigned a paper, the Handling Editor will contact three reviewers to evaluate the paper and assess it for clarity, validity, and sound methodology. Reviewers have one week to respond to the invitation. If they do not, new reviewers will be contacted by the Handling Editor until a quorum of three is reached. The time reviewers take to react may substantially lengthen the duration of the reviewing process.

Reviewers are asked to send in their reviews four weeks after accepting the invitation, but this is negotiable. They are invited to use a review form to evaluate the paper, but using this form is not compulsory. Reviewers are gently and regularly reminded of their invitations to review and the due dates for their reviews.

The reviewing process is double-masked: reviewers have no access to the identity of the authors, and the authors do not know who the reviewers are. However, if reviewers happen to know the identity of the author, this does not automatically disqualify them as reviewers.

During submission, authors can suggest and exclude reviewers for their submission, and they may justify these proposals. The Editors are free (but not obliged) to contact suggested reviewers. They will not contact excluded reviewers for the purposes of reviewing a submission.

Reviewers are encouraged to read the Glossa Psycholinguistics policy on open data and ethics and the journal's statistical guidelines before undertaking their review. Both give guidance about expected best practices for work in Glossa Psycholinguistics.

Members of the editorial team/board/guest editors are permitted to submit their own papers to the journal. In cases where an author is associated with the journal, they will be removed from all editorial tasks for that paper and another member of the team will be assigned responsibility for overseeing peer review. A competing interest must also be declared within the submission and any resulting publication.

Editorial decisions and revisions


When all reviews are in, the Editor makes an editorial decision, usually based on three reviews. In some cases a decision may be made with two reviews--for example, when a third review fails to materialize after repeated reminders, and time is too short to invite a new reviewer. At Glossa Psycholinguistics, timely initial editorial decisions are generally prioritized over a complete set of three reviews.

If the editorial decision is “resubmit for review”, ”revisions required”, or “accept submission”, authors are asked to provide a detailed document explaining how their revised submission has taken reviewers’ comments into account. This document will be read both by the reviewers (in the case of “resubmit for review”) and the Editor. The revised version should ideally be resubmitted within 90 days after the editorial decision is made, but this is negotiable. In the case of “resubmit for review”, the revised version and the document detailing the changes will be sent to the initial reviewers, unless the author can demonstrate that one of the reviewers is biased against the paper. Additional reviewers may also be invited at this point if the initial reviewer is unavailable, or at the discretion of the Editor. In principle (conditionally) accepted submissions are not sent out for review again once the author submits the revised version. The Editor makes an editorial decision based on the revised paper and the author’s reply to the reviewers. The Editor may still contact one or more reviewers regarding specific questions. In principle, the Editors will allow for a maximum of three rounds of submission for a paper.

Peer reviewers should also remember that their role is to make suggestions that will strengthen the paper. Often additional empirical work will be required, but reviewers should make sure such work is essential to establishing or reinforcing the authors' conclusions. 

In case of conflicting reviews, or if an author formulates justified objections to the review(s), the Editors reserve the right to invite a fourth, ‘Solomonic’ reviewer who will have access to all versions of the paper and all reviews in order to advise the Editors. At all times, the Editors try to facilitate the conversation between authors and reviewers as best they can.