For editors
Editors’ Guidelines
How a handling editor at Journal of Water assesses fit, selects reviewers, manages conflicts and reaches a decision. This is the working guide for editors already appointed to the board.
The editor’s role
Scholarly stewardship of one manuscript at a time
The handling editor owns the manuscript from assignment to decision: judging whether it belongs in the journal, choosing who is competent to review it, weighing what the reviews say against the evidence in the paper, and writing a decision the authors can act on.
Editorial decisions rest with the handling editor and the reviewers, and remain independent of fees, membership, and editorial or reviewing roles.
Handling a manuscript
- 01
Assess scope and readiness
All submissions undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal's scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review. An editor who judges a manuscript outside the journal’s remit returns it promptly with the reason, so the authors can place it elsewhere without delay.
- 02
Check for conflicts before accepting the assignment
An editor declines a manuscript where a shared institution, recent collaboration, supervisory relationship or competing interest would make an independent judgment difficult, and asks for it to be reassigned.
- 03
Select reviewers on competence
Reviewers are chosen for their expertise in the methods and the system under study. Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request. Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts. An author-suggested reviewer is used only where the editor independently judges the person suitable.
- 04
Protect confidentiality
A submitted manuscript is confidential. It is not shared, cited or used outside the review it was sent for. When double-blind review is requested, editors must ensure that author-identifying information is not shared with reviewers.
- 05
Weigh the reviews, then decide
Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal. Where reviewers disagree, the editor resolves the disagreement on the evidence rather than by counting recommendations, and may seek a further opinion.
- 06
Write a usable decision
The decision letter says what is required, distinguishes essential revisions from suggestions, and gives authors a clear basis for their response.
Research integrity
Concerns raised during review
An editor who encounters a possible integrity problem — undisclosed overlap with published work, data that cannot be reconciled with the methods, missing ethical approval, or an authorship dispute — pauses the decision and refers the matter to the editorial office rather than resolving it alone.
Concerns raised after publication follow the corrections and retractions process in the Editorial Policies, which is an editorial finding about the work rather than about the people who wrote it.
An editor submitting to this journal recuses from the handling of their own manuscript, which is assigned independently.
Editorial office
Reassignment requests, integrity concerns and questions about how a policy applies go to [email protected].