Editorial Review:
The Editorial process starts with an initial review by the Editor-in-Chief, who makes an initial assessment of suitability for the Journal of the Arab Society for Medical Research (J Arab Soc Med Res). A manuscript will be reviewed for possible publication with the understanding that it is being submitted to the Journal of the Arab Society for Medical Research alone, then and has not been published anywhere, simultaneously submitted, or already accepted for publication elsewhere. The journal expects that authors would authorize one of them to correspond with the Journal for all matters related to the manuscript. All manuscripts received are duly acknowledged. On submission, editors review all submitted manuscripts initially for suitability for formal review and check for plagiarism similarity. Manuscripts with insufficient originality, high similarity index, serious scientific or technical flaws, or lack of a significant message are rejected before proceeding for formal peer review. Manuscripts that are unlikely to be of interest to the Journal of the Arab Society for Medical Research readers are also liable to be rejected at this stage.
Anti-Plagiarism Policy:
All manuscripts submitted to the Journal of the Arab Society for Medical Research undergo a plagiarism check with commercially available software. Plagiarism includes duplicate publication of the author's own work, in whole or in part, without proper citation or mispresenting others' ideas, words, and other creative expression as one's own. The Journal follows a strict anti-plagiarism policy. Based on the extent of plagiarism, authors may be asked to address any minor duplication or similarity with previously published work. If plagiarism is detected after publication, the Journal will investigate. If plagiarism is established, the journal will notify the authors' institution and funding bodies and will retract the plagiarized article. To report plagiarism, contact the journal office (email: Society_arab@yahoo.com).
Review Process:
All manuscripts are subject to a strict peer-review process (double-blind peer review process) involving members of the editorial board and external reviewers with expertise in the subject matter. We encourage a systematic approach to manuscript review and provide reviewers with the "COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers" and promote a methodical approach to article review.
Manuscripts after screened by the Editor in Chief and found that be suitable for publication in the Journal of the Arab Society for Medical Research are sent to two or more expert reviewers. The reviewers' selected criteria are full professor degree and being the oldest professor with high expertise and a consultant in their field (sometimes selecting the oldest associate professor in some rare fields of specialty). Moreover, at least one reviewer must be a full professor from the NRC, Egypt. The journal follows a double-blind review process, wherein the reviewers and authors are unaware of each other’s identity. All reviewers and/or the editorial board members who are authors and/or have any conflict of interest will be excluded from revision and publication decisions. During submission, the contributor is requested to provide names of two or three qualified reviewers who have experience in the subject of the submitted manuscript, but this is not mandatory. However, the selection of these reviewers is at the sole discretion of the Editor-in-Chief.
The comments and suggestions (acceptance/ rejection/ amendments in manuscript) received from reviewers are conveyed to the corresponding author. If required, the author is requested to provide a point-by-point response to reviewers’ comments and submit a revised version of the manuscript. This process is repeated till reviewers and editors are satisfied with the manuscript.
Manuscripts accepted for publication are copy edited for grammar, punctuation, print style, and format. Page proofs are sent to the corresponding author. The corresponding author is expected to return the corrected proofs within three days. It may not be possible to incorporate corrections received after that period. The whole process of submission of the manuscript to final decision and sending and receiving proofs is completed online. To achieve faster and greater dissemination of knowledge and information, the journal publishes articles online as ‘Ahead of Print’ immediately on acceptance.
Publication decisions
The Editor-in-Chief of the journal is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published based on the scientific quality of the work. The editor may be guided by the editorial policies of the journal and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. The editor may confer with the members of the Editorial Board or reviewers in making this decision. The Editor-in-Chief and the reviewers evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors. Manuscripts can be accepted, with minor or major revisions, or rejected. If 'revision' is the decision, the authors are asked to consider the comments made by the editors and reviewers. There may be a second review procedure. The authors will receive an email notification upon final acceptance, and the language editor will provide a free linguistic edit service for the accepted work. The corresponding author will thus receive the galley proof as a PDF file. Within two working days, this proof needs to be carefully corrected and submitted.
Processes for appeals
The authors do have the right to appeal if they have a genuine cause to believe that the editorial board has wrongly rejected the paper. If the authors wish to appeal the decision, they should email the editorial office (email: Society_arab@yahoo.com) explaining in detail the reason for the appeal. The appeals will be acknowledged by the editorial office and will be investigated in an unbiased manner. The processing of appeals will be done within 6 – 8 weeks. While under appeal, the said manuscript should not be submitted to other journals. The final decision rests with the Editor in Chief of the journal. Second appeals are not considered.
Time Frame
The journal’s first decision for the first-round revision may be expected at the earliest four weeks after submission and the final decision of acceptance or rejection is expected within 4-5 weeks. The accepted article then will appear online as articles in the press and later will be released in the next convenient journal issue.