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ASCE Policy on Peer Review
- To be accepted or rejected for publication, a paper must receive two positive or two negative reviews. The journal editor may be a reviewer.
- If the editor receives one positive and one negative review, a third, tie-breaking review, must be obtained.
- A resubmitted paper must go through a full round of reviews. A resubmitted paper is one that has previously been declined by ASCE and the author has revised it and is submitting it for another round of reviews. The editor may send the paper back to the original reviewers or select new reviewers. To have a paper reviewed for a second time, the author should have revised it along the lines recommended by the reviewers.
- A rereview paper is one that has received two positive reviews and been tentatively accepted with the condition that revisions must be made and that the revised manuscript must go back to the editor (or someone the editor selects) for final review. (If a reviewer checks the rereview category, he or she must be willing to actually perform the rereview.) A manuscript under rereview may be accepted if a single review with positive results is performed by the editor or by one of the previous reviewers. If this single review is negative, two positive reviews from additional reviewers are required to finally accept the paper or note. A manuscript under rereview may be declined if the author did not revise the manuscript as required by the reviewers, if new material was introduced that is considered to be of unacceptable quality, or if additional errors are found. It is important that the editor treat the author fairly when it is found necessary to decline a rereview paper or note.
- A manuscript may be declined for review, if the editor considers it outside the scope of the journal, substandard in its use of English, or the content at a technical level inappropriate for the readership of the journal. The manuscript should be returned to Headquarters, with a cover letter stating the reasons for the rejection.
- Technical notes require the same number of reviews for acceptance or rejection as do papers. The same policies governing papers apply to notes.
- All committee reports are to be reviewed by the executive committee of a division or council and the committee is to be listed as the author.
- Multiple submissions (i.e., papers that are submitted to an ASCE journal and to another journal at the same time) are not reviewed for publication in an ASCE journal. A paper cannot be submitted to more than one ASCE journal at the same time.
- Reviewers are anonymous to authors; it is therefore best, whenever possible, to avoid handwritten reviews, which can sometimes reveal the reviewer's identity. Reviews with the reviewers' names on them should be sent to ASCE; it is the responsibility of ASCE staff to delete these names from the copies of the reviews sent to the author.
- The journal, and committee, to which a paper is submitted is the choice of the author. If the editor feels the paper is inappropriate for the journal, it should be returned to ASCE, with advice on the appropriate division, institute, or council to review it. ASCE will contact the author to get his or her approval for the transfer of the manuscript.
- To accept or decline a Discussion or Closure, one review is required by the editor or someone he or she designates to review Discussions. It does not need to be sent to an individual reviewer unless the Discussion reviewer feels an outside review, for particular expertise, is necessary.
- The content of editorials and forums is the responsibility of the Editor, unless the editor delegates it to someone else.
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