48 DECEMBER 2015 • WORLD AQUACULTURE • WWW.WAS.ORG The peer-review process starts with the proper preparation and submission of the manuscript (Fig. 1). The manuscript must be written and presented strictly in accordance with instructions for authors of the journal and should match the journal’s scope (Yossa 2014). Although some academic journals continue to accept hard copies of manuscripts, most aquaculture journals use electronic, online systems to manage the peer-review process. In this case the authors submit an electronic version of their manuscript package, including the main text, tables, figures and figure legends through the journal’s peer-review management system online. When a manuscript is submitted, the editor-in-chief receives an alert that a new manuscript has entered the process and an initial screening is made (Fig. 1). The initial screening aims at verifying: • Completeness of the application package. Here the editor-in-chief checks that the main document contains the title, abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, conclusion, list of cited references, and that tables and figures are properly formatted in accordance with author instructions for the journal. • Inclusion of the full names, affiliation and contact information, including email addresses, of all co-authors in the electronic manuscript management system. • Absence of all personal information (names, affiliation, contact information, etc.) of the authors in the manuscript. This is to keep the identity of authors anonymous to peer-reviewers to avoid potential bias in peer review. • Correct listing of references in the main text of the manuscript and the reference list, cited strictly in accordance with author instructions for the journal. • Matching of the manuscript subject with the journal scope. The editor-in-chief usually reads the title and abstract of the manuscript. The editor-in-chief usually performs the first four tasks listed. If one or more of the first four conditions are not satisfied, then the manuscript is sent back to the author for revision and resubmission (Fig. 1). If the last condition is not satisfied, then the manuscript is immediately rejected and it does not go further in the review process. If all conditions are satisfied, then the manuscript enters the peer-review process and is sent to an associate editor. The associate editor performs the second screening by skimming through the entire manuscript to evaluate if findings contained in the submitted manuscript merit publication. The manuscript is immediately rejected if the associate editor finds serious flaws in the manuscript; for instance, if the study is not original, does not add anything to the existing knowledge on the topic, if a similar study has been published by other authors elsewhere, or if there is a relevant problem in the experimental design or materials and methods such as the absence of statistics to the compare treatments. If the associate editor finds the manuscript relevant, peer reviewers are selected and invited to review the manuscript (Fig. 1). The associate editor may accept the preferred and non-preferred potential peer reviewers suggested by the authors upon manuscript submission or solicit other scientists to serve as peer reviewers. Peer reviewers carry the greatest burden in the peer-review process because they are expected to graciously perform a thorough and timely evaluation of the submitted manuscript. The peer reviewers’ task is described in detail in the next section. Upon completion of the review, each peer reviewer submits a report to the associate editor containing comments and a recommendation of either accept, reject, major revision or minor revision (minor editing) (Fig. 1). However, although these are the general recommendations used by most academic journals, the exact terminologies used in decisionmaking for each journal is dictated by the publisher and can vary among journals; for instance, recommendations may also include accept after minor revision, accept after major revision and tentatively accepted. Recommendations from at least two peer reviewers are required by the associate editor to make a determination that is sent to the editor-in-chief (Fig. 1). Usually, when both peer reviewers make the same recommendation, the associate editor tends to make a similar recommendation to the editor-in-chief. The editor-in-chief usually relies on the associate editor’s recommendation to make the final decision on the manuscript. If the associate editor’s recommendation is to accept, the editorin-chief carefully reads the manuscript before making a final decision, which is usually either minor additional revision (to polish the manuscript) or acceptance. In any other case, the editor-in-chief usually conforms to the associate editor’s recommendation. When the editor-in-chef accepts a manuscript, the publisher generates a proof. This document is sequentially edited and proofread by the authors. With most journals, upon completion of proofreading, an early version of the manuscript is published online. This version of the manuscript has not been assigned a volume, issue or page range of the journal, but bears a digital object identifier (DOI). The DOI is a unique code that identifies a specific electronic document in the universe of scientific papers. Later, the final version of the manuscript is published in a specific volume, issue and page range, with the same DOI. The Principles of Manuscript Review in Aquaculture Research As a scientific discipline, aquaculture is an applied science that uses principles and theories of aquatic biology and agriculture to study the production of aquatic animals and plants. However, because it is fairly difficult to draw a line that separates aquaculture science from aquatic biology, some journals that accept aquaculture manuscripts, here referred to as aquaculture journals, are more ‘discipline-oriented’ (genomics, bacteriology and virology, epidemiology, genetics, physiology, conservation Peer review is an important way to spread significant advances in knowledge among scientists because quality of the overall scientific work, presentation of research and results and novelty of findings are validated by peers prior to publication. Peer reviewers carry the greatest burden in the peer-review process because they are expected to graciously perform a thorough and timely evaluation of the submitted manuscript.
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