1. General Purpose
Journal of New Technology and Materials relies on qualified peer reviewers to support the quality, reliability, and integrity of the scholarly record. Reviewers play an important role in helping editors assess the originality, scientific validity, methodological soundness, clarity, and relevance of submitted manuscripts.
The purpose of peer review is not only to assist the editor in making an editorial decision, but also to help authors improve the quality, accuracy, and presentation of their work. Reviewers are therefore expected to provide fair, constructive, evidence-based, and professionally written evaluations.
2. Peer-Review Model
Journal of New Technology and Materials follows a single-blind peer-review process. In this model, the reviewers know the identity of the authors, but the identities of reviewers are kept confidential from the authors.
Reviewer anonymity is protected by the journal. Reviewers should not disclose their identity in the review report unless the journal has specifically approved such disclosure.
3. Role of Reviewers
Reviewers are invited to evaluate manuscripts according to their academic expertise and the scope of the journal. A reviewer’s main responsibilities include assessing the scientific quality of the manuscript, identifying strengths and weaknesses, commenting on originality and contribution, checking the appropriateness of methodology, and recommending whether the manuscript is suitable for publication.
Reviewers should provide comments that are clear enough for the editor to understand the basis of the recommendation and helpful enough for authors to improve the manuscript.
4. Accepting or Declining a Review Invitation
Before accepting a review invitation, reviewers should consider whether they have the appropriate expertise, sufficient time, and no conflict of interest.
Reviewers should accept the invitation only if they can provide a careful and timely review. If the manuscript is outside the reviewer’s area of expertise, or if the reviewer cannot complete the review within the requested time, the invitation should be declined promptly.
Reviewers may suggest alternative qualified reviewers when declining, but suggested reviewers should not have conflicts of interest with the authors or the manuscript.
5. Confidentiality
All manuscripts sent for review are confidential documents. Reviewers must not share, copy, distribute, discuss, or use any part of the manuscript without permission from the journal.
The confidentiality requirement applies to the manuscript text, data, figures, tables, supplementary files, reviewer comments, editorial correspondence, and any unpublished information contained in the submission.
Reviewers must not use unpublished material from the manuscript for their own research, teaching, publication, commercial activity, or personal advantage.
If a reviewer wishes to consult a colleague, student, or specialist for advice, permission must first be obtained from the editorial office. Any person consulted must also agree to maintain confidentiality.
6. Conflicts of Interest
Reviewers must declare any conflict of interest that could affect, or appear to affect, their impartial evaluation of the manuscript.
A conflict of interest may include:
- Recent collaboration with one or more authors;
- Same institutional affiliation as the authors;
- Personal, academic, or professional relationship with the authors;
- Direct competition with the authors;
- Financial interest related to the research;
- Involvement in the submitted work;
- Strong personal or professional bias for or against the authors;
- Any situation that may affect independent judgment.
If a conflict of interest exists, the reviewer should decline the review invitation and inform the editorial office.
7. Review Timeline
Reviewers are requested to submit their reports within the deadline provided in the review invitation. Timely completion of reviewer reports helps the journal maintain its editorial timeline.
The general peer-review process of Journal of New Technology and Materials is approximately 60 days. Reviewers are therefore encouraged to complete their evaluations promptly and to inform the editorial office as soon as possible if additional time is needed.
8. Main Criteria for Evaluation
Reviewers should assess the manuscript carefully and consider the following points:
Originality and Novelty
The reviewer should evaluate whether the manuscript presents original research, a new interpretation, a useful application, or a meaningful advancement in materials science, materials engineering, nanoscience, nanotechnology, or related fields.
The reviewer should also consider whether the manuscript clearly explains its novelty in relation to existing literature.
Relevance to the Journal Scope
The manuscript should fall within the aims and scope of Journal of New Technology and Materials. It should have a clear connection to materials science, materials engineering, new technologies, nanoscience, nanotechnology, or related interdisciplinary fields.
If the manuscript is outside the journal’s scope, the reviewer should state this clearly.
Scientific and Technical Quality
The reviewer should assess whether the study is scientifically sound and technically reliable. This includes evaluating the research question, experimental design, theoretical framework, computational model, analytical approach, or engineering application.
The reviewer should identify any major scientific errors, unsupported claims, weak assumptions, or technical limitations.
Methodology
The methods should be appropriate, clearly described, and sufficiently detailed. Reviewers should consider whether the materials, instruments, procedures, calculations, simulations, models, statistical methods, or characterization techniques are suitable for the research objective.
If the methodology is incomplete, unclear, or inappropriate, the reviewer should explain what information or correction is needed.
Results and Interpretation
The results should be clearly presented and supported by appropriate evidence. Reviewers should evaluate whether the figures, tables, graphs, spectra, images, equations, or datasets support the conclusions.
The interpretation should be logical, balanced, and not overstated. Reviewers should identify any conclusions that are not supported by the results.
Literature and References
The manuscript should cite relevant, current, and reliable literature. Reviewers should check whether important previous studies have been considered and whether the references are appropriate for the topic.
Reviewers should not request unnecessary citations or suggest citations only to increase citation counts. Citation recommendations should be academically justified.
Clarity and Organization
The manuscript should be clearly written, logically organized, and understandable to readers in the field. Reviewers should comment on structure, terminology, figures, tables, equations, and overall presentation.
If the language requires improvement, reviewers may state this, but the review should focus mainly on scientific content and scholarly quality.
Ethical Compliance
Reviewers should identify possible ethical concerns, including plagiarism, duplicate publication, data fabrication, data falsification, image manipulation, inappropriate authorship, undisclosed conflicts of interest, missing ethical approval, or misuse of third-party material.
Any suspected ethical issue should be reported confidentially to the editor.
9. Structure of the Review Report
Reviewers are encouraged to organize their reports in a clear and constructive manner. A useful review report may include the following parts:
Summary of the Manuscript
Briefly summarize the purpose, methods, and main findings of the manuscript. This helps the editor confirm that the reviewer understood the study.
General Assessment
Provide an overall evaluation of the manuscript, including its originality, importance, scientific quality, and suitability for Journal of New Technology and Materials.
Major Comments
Major comments should address issues that affect the scientific validity, interpretation, originality, methodology, structure, or publication suitability of the manuscript.
Examples of major issues include weak methodology, unsupported conclusions, missing controls, unclear experimental design, insufficient data, incomplete analysis, serious literature gaps, or ethical concerns.
Minor Comments
Minor comments may address presentation, clarity, grammar, figure quality, table formatting, reference style, typographical errors, or small corrections that do not affect the main findings.
Recommendation
The reviewer should provide a recommendation to the editor. The recommendation should be consistent with the comments given in the report.
10. Possible Reviewer Recommendations
Reviewers may recommend one of the following decisions:
Accept
The manuscript is scientifically sound, clearly presented, original, and suitable for publication with no further changes or only very minor editorial corrections.
Minor Revision
The manuscript is generally suitable for publication, but small corrections or clarifications are required before acceptance.
Major Revision
The manuscript has potential value, but substantial changes are required. Major revision may involve additional analysis, clearer methodology, stronger discussion, improved figures, better literature support, or significant restructuring.
Reject and Resubmit
The manuscript has serious weaknesses but may become suitable after major redevelopment. A substantially revised version may be considered as a new submission.
Reject
The manuscript is not suitable for publication because of serious scientific, methodological, ethical, originality, scope, or presentation problems.
11. Tone and Professional Conduct
Reviewer comments should be respectful, objective, and constructive. Personal criticism of authors is not acceptable.
Reviewers should focus on the manuscript, not the authors. Comments should be specific and supported by evidence. Instead of writing vague statements such as “the manuscript is weak,” reviewers should explain which part is weak and how it may be improved.
The language of the review should be professional, even when recommending rejection.
12. Ethical Concerns During Review
Reviewers should notify the editor if they suspect any of the following:
- Plagiarism or excessive textual similarity;
- Duplicate submission or duplicate publication;
- Fabricated or falsified data;
- Misleading image manipulation;
- Incorrect or missing ethical approval;
- Inappropriate authorship;
- Undisclosed conflict of interest;
- Peer-review manipulation;
- Citation manipulation;
- Use of unreliable or fabricated references;
- Serious errors affecting the validity of results.
Ethical concerns should be reported in the confidential comments to the editor, with clear explanation and supporting evidence where possible.
13. Use of Artificial Intelligence Tools by Reviewers
Reviewers must protect the confidentiality of manuscripts. Reviewers should not upload submitted manuscripts, figures, tables, data, or confidential review materials into public or external artificial intelligence tools unless the journal has explicitly permitted it and confidentiality can be guaranteed.
AI tools must not replace the reviewer’s own expert judgment. Reviewers remain fully responsible for the content, accuracy, fairness, and confidentiality of their review report.
If AI-assisted tools are used for minor language checking of the reviewer’s own comments, reviewers should ensure that no confidential manuscript content is disclosed.
14. Comments to the Editor
Reviewers may provide confidential comments to the editor when necessary. These comments may include concerns about ethical issues, publication suitability, possible conflicts, suspected misconduct, or the reviewer’s reasoning behind the recommendation.
Confidential comments should not contradict the main comments given to authors. If a reviewer recommends rejection, the main reasons should generally be explained clearly in the comments to authors, unless confidentiality or ethics requires private communication with the editor.
15. Comments to Authors
Comments to authors should be written in a way that helps improve the manuscript. Reviewers should identify the specific section, figure, table, equation, or reference where changes are needed.
Where possible, reviewers should provide actionable suggestions rather than general criticism.
For example, instead of writing:
“The discussion is poor.”
A more useful comment would be:
“The discussion should compare the present results with recent studies on similar nanostructured materials and should explain why the reported improvement in performance is significant.”
16. Reviewing Revised Manuscripts
When reviewing a revised manuscript, reviewers should evaluate whether the authors have responded adequately to previous comments.
Reviewers should check the revised manuscript and the authors’ response letter. If concerns remain unresolved, the reviewer should explain which issues still require attention.
Reviewers should avoid raising entirely new major issues at the revision stage unless they are necessary, newly introduced by the revision, or directly related to the manuscript’s scientific validity.
17. Reviewer Recognition
Journal of New Technology and Materials values the contribution of peer reviewers. Reviewers support the quality and credibility of the journal by providing expert evaluation and constructive advice.
Reviewer contributions are treated as confidential under the single-blind review model. Where appropriate, the journal may acknowledge reviewer service in general terms, but individual manuscript review details remain confidential.
18. When a Reviewer Should Decline
A reviewer should decline the invitation if:
- The topic is outside their expertise;
- They cannot complete the review within the requested time;
- They have a conflict of interest;
- They cannot provide an objective evaluation;
- They have already reviewed the same manuscript for another journal;
- They recognize ethical concerns that prevent impartial review;
- They are unable to maintain confidentiality.
Promptly declining unsuitable invitations helps the journal invite another qualified reviewer without delay.
19. Checklist for Reviewers
Before submitting a review report, reviewers should consider whether they have addressed the following questions:
- Is the manuscript within the scope of Journal of New Technology and Materials?
- Is the research original and significant?
- Are the objectives clear?
- Are the methods appropriate and sufficiently described?
- Are the results reliable and clearly presented?
- Are the conclusions supported by the findings?
- Are figures and tables clear and necessary?
- Are references relevant and adequate?
- Are there any ethical concerns?
- Is the manuscript clearly written and logically organized?
- Is the recommendation consistent with the review comments?
20. Contact
Questions regarding review assignments, deadlines, conflicts of interest, confidentiality, or ethical concerns should be directed to the editorial office of Journal of New Technology and Materials through the official contact information provided by the journal.