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International Journal of Nutrology

Guidelines for Reviewers

The International Journal of Nutrology (IJN) relies on qualified external reviewers to provide independent, confidential, evidence-based, and constructive assessments of submitted manuscripts. These guidelines apply to all reviewers invited to evaluate content for the journal.

The IJN uses double-blind peer review. Reviewers do not receive the authors' identities, and reviewer identities are not disclosed to authors. Each scholarly manuscript that passes initial editorial screening is evaluated by at least three independent external reviewers with relevant expertise.

Before Accepting a Review

An invited reviewer should accept the assignment only when able to provide an impartial and competent assessment within the requested time. Before accepting, the reviewer must consider:

  • whether the manuscript falls within the reviewer's scientific, clinical, methodological, or statistical expertise;
  • whether sufficient time is available to complete a careful review;
  • whether any financial, personal, professional, academic, institutional, intellectual, or other conflict could affect, or reasonably appear to affect, impartiality; and
  • whether the reviewer can protect the confidentiality of the manuscript and associated information.

Reviewers who lack appropriate expertise, cannot meet the deadline, or have a relevant conflict of interest must decline the invitation promptly and, when appropriate, briefly inform the editor of the reason.

Conflicts of Interest

Reviewers must disclose all actual, potential, or perceived conflicts before accepting an invitation and whenever a conflict becomes apparent during the review. Relevant conflicts include, but are not limited to:

  • current or recent coauthorship with an author;
  • current or recent employment at the same institution as an author;
  • supervision, mentorship, active collaboration, or direct academic competition;
  • close personal relationships or personal disputes;
  • financial interests connected to the manuscript's subject or outcome; and
  • prior access to, involvement in, or evaluation of substantially the same work.

When in doubt, the reviewer must disclose the situation to the editor and wait for a decision. Disclosure does not automatically imply misconduct, but failure to disclose may compromise the review.

Confidentiality

Submitted manuscripts are privileged and confidential communications. Reviewers must not:

  • share the manuscript, supplementary files, correspondence, or review report with an unauthorized person;
  • discuss the manuscript publicly or privately outside the authorized editorial process;
  • use unpublished information, data, methods, or ideas for personal, academic, professional, or financial advantage;
  • retain or distribute copies of the manuscript after completing the review, except when required by applicable law or expressly authorized by the journal; or
  • attempt to discover or confirm the authors' identities.

If assistance from a trainee or colleague is necessary, the reviewer must obtain prior permission from the editor. Every person who contributes to the review must be identified to the editor, disclose conflicts of interest, and follow the same confidentiality requirements.

Use of Artificial Intelligence

Reviewers must not upload the manuscript, supplementary material, review report, or confidential editorial information to a generative artificial intelligence system or another external service when confidentiality, data protection, and content retention cannot be assured.

Any proposed use of artificial intelligence to assist a review requires prior authorization from the journal and must be disclosed to the editor. Artificial intelligence must not replace the reviewer's scientific judgment. The reviewer remains fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, fairness, and integrity of the submitted report.

Standards of Conduct

Reviews must be objective, evidence-based, constructive, respectful, and focused on the manuscript rather than the authors. Reviewers must avoid hostile, defamatory, discriminatory, dismissive, or personally directed language.

Reviewers must not:

  • delay a review for personal or competitive advantage;
  • delegate the review without prior authorization;
  • impersonate another person or permit another person to submit a report under their identity;
  • contact the authors directly regarding the manuscript;
  • request citations that are irrelevant to the work;
  • request citations primarily intended to increase citations to the reviewer, associates, an institution, or a journal; or
  • recommend acceptance or rejection for reasons unrelated to scientific, ethical, methodological, or editorial merit.

Scientific and Editorial Assessment

The review should assess, as applicable to the article type:

  • Scope and relevance: whether the manuscript fits the journal's aims and addresses a question relevant to nutrology and the applicable health sciences.
  • Originality and contribution: whether the work presents a clearly explained and meaningful contribution beyond existing literature.
  • Research question and objectives: whether they are explicit, coherent, and scientifically justified.
  • Methods: whether the design, sample, procedures, instruments, interventions, outcomes, and analyses are appropriate and described in sufficient detail.
  • Statistics: whether statistical methods are appropriate, assumptions are addressed, results are reported completely, and conclusions are supported.
  • Results: whether results are clear, complete, internally consistent, and presented without selective reporting or inappropriate duplication.
  • Discussion and conclusions: whether interpretations are supported by the findings, limitations are acknowledged, and conclusions do not exceed the evidence.
  • Ethics: whether approvals, consent, participant protections, animal welfare, registration, conflicts, funding, and other mandatory declarations are adequately reported.
  • Reporting guidelines: whether the applicable standard and checklist, such as CONSORT, PRISMA, STROBE, CARE, STARD, COREQ, or ARRIVE, have been followed.
  • References: whether citations are current, relevant, balanced, and accurately support the statements made.
  • Tables, figures, and supplementary material: whether they are necessary, clear, consistent with the text, and free from apparent inappropriate manipulation.
  • Clarity: whether the manuscript is organized and written clearly enough for reliable scientific assessment.

The reviewer should not make a definitive accusation based only on similarity, suspicion, or an apparent irregularity. Concerns should be reported confidentially to the editor with the location of the issue and the evidence available.

Structure of the Review Report

A useful report should contain:

  1. Brief assessment: summarize the research question, principal contribution, and overall scientific quality.
  2. Major comments: identify issues affecting validity, ethics, originality, methods, analysis, interpretation, or reproducibility.
  3. Minor comments: identify specific improvements in clarity, organization, terminology, tables, figures, or references.
  4. Confidential comments to the editor: report conflicts, integrity concerns, or information that should not be transmitted directly to the authors.
  5. Recommendation: select the most appropriate editorial recommendation and provide clear reasons.

Comments to authors and the confidential recommendation to the editor must be consistent. Reviewers should number their comments and, when possible, identify the relevant page, paragraph, table, figure, or section.

Editorial Recommendations

Reviewers may recommend:

  • Accept;
  • Minor revision;
  • Major revision;
  • Reject with permission to submit a substantially new manuscript; or
  • Reject without invitation to resubmit.

The recommendation should reflect the seriousness and correctability of the identified issues. Reviewers advise the editor; the final decision is made by the responsible editor after evaluating the manuscript, all reports, and the journal's scientific, ethical, and editorial requirements.

Research-Integrity Concerns

Reviewers must confidentially notify the editor when they identify suspected:

  • plagiarism, duplicate publication, or undisclosed overlap;
  • fabricated, falsified, inconsistent, or implausible data;
  • inappropriate image alteration;
  • missing or questionable ethics approval, consent, participant protection, or animal-welfare information;
  • undisclosed conflicts of interest or funding;
  • citation manipulation;
  • authorship irregularities; or
  • manipulation of the peer-review or publication process.

The journal will assess such concerns through its editorial and research-integrity procedures and may follow applicable COPE Core Practices. Following COPE guidance does not constitute a claim that the journal is a COPE member.

Review of Revised Manuscripts

When reviewing a revision, reviewers should assess whether the authors have responded adequately to every substantive comment, whether changes are supported by evidence, and whether new concerns have arisen. Reviewers should not introduce unrelated requirements in later rounds unless necessary to address new information or a problem created by the revision.

After Submitting the Review

Reviewers must continue to protect confidentiality after the report is submitted and after the editorial decision. Manuscript files and personal copies should be securely deleted when no longer required. Reviewers must notify the journal if a conflict, error, confidentiality breach, or other relevant concern is discovered after submitting the report.

Standards and References