Peer review process

ARBITRATION SYSTEM

In compliance with these best practices, PH has published its review system for selecting articles, as well as the evaluation criteria to be applied by external reviewers—anonymous and peer reviewers- who are not members of the Editorial Board, to the Institution and to the authors. The criteria are based exclusively on the scientific relevance of the article, originality, clarity and relevance of the work presented. PH keeps these criteria updated.

EXTERNAL PEER REVIEW AND ANONYMOUS EVALUATION

Once the journal’s Editorial Board has verified that the article complies with the rules regarding style and content indicated in the guidelines for authors and in the Ethical Commitment document, it will send the article to two anonymous expert reviewers who are not members of the Editorial Board, to the Institution and to the authors. This is done according to the double-blind process, and the experts belong to the specific field of linguistic and literary research. When one of the two evaluations is negative, a third report will be requested.

The evaluation will focus on the relevance of the article, its contribution to the knowledge of the subject, the new features introduced, the relations established, the critical judgement developed, the bibliographical references, its correct wording, etc., making suggestions, if applicable, for its possible improvement.

Based on the reviewers’ suggestions, the journal’s secretary will inform the authors of the reasoned result of the review by e-mail, at the address they used to send the article. The secretary will inform the main author of the result of the review (publication without changes; publication with corrections; not suitable for publication), as well as the reviewers’ observations and comments.

If the manuscript has been accepted with modifications, the authors must resubmit a new version of the article, considering the requests and suggestions made by the external reviewers. If they wish, the authors can also submit a letter to the Editorial Board indicating the content of the modifications made to the article. Articles with significant corrections may be sent to the Advisory Board to verify the validity of the modifications made by the author.

Depending on the degree of compliance with the requested modifications, the Advisory Board will decide whether to publish the article. The secretary of the journal will inform the author of this decision.

The Editorial Board may directly reject the works received, without resorting to an external review process, if they are deemed to be unsuitable for the journal because they lack the required quality standards, for not responding its content to a standardized structure (Introduction, Approach, Methods and Materials, Analysis or Study, Results, Discussion, Conclusions and References), because they are not in line with the scientific aims of the journal, because they do not adapt to the rules of publication or because they contain evidence of scientific fraud.