Guidelines for reviewers

by Antonia Abbey, March 2019

The peer review process relies on thoughtful, rigorous reviews. Providing reviews to other scholars is an important avenue for influencing the field and maximizing the quality of violence research. In the following sections, some of the material is specific to Psychology of Violence and some is general information that applies to many journals. Please take a few minutes if you have not previously reviewed for Psychology of Violence to read the sections below.

The goal of the peer review process is to improve the overall level of science in the field. The vast majority of reviews that Psychology of Violence receives are balanced, constructive, and appropriately identify the main strengths and weaknesses of a manuscript. It is important to maintain a constructive tone. Even when manuscripts are rejected, we anticipate that authors will find the comments useful for their future work.

There are an almost infinite number of issues that might be raised in a review, but some of the most commonly mentioned concerns involve the following:

Empirical papers need to establish how the current manuscript builds on existing work (older work and recent work) and especially how the current manuscript will make a novel contribution to the field. The literature review needs to be sufficiently detailed to justify the study; however, it also needs to be succinct to stay within the required page length (30 pages inclusive). Additionally, the introduction needs to provide a specific rationale for including the main variables under study.

Reviewers should consult the updated APA Style Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS) for quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research as they review authors' methodology. These standards offer ways to improve transparency in reporting. See Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS)opens in new window.

Regarding methodology, one of the most important issues is to focus on the adequacy of the operationalization of the constructs. High quality measurement is essential. No amount of sophisticated statistical analyses can make up for problematic measures or flawed sampling procedures.

Appropriateness of the sample to address the study’s aims is also important. Research with diverse populations and in diverse contexts increases the generalizability of scientific knowledge.

Sample size is also an important criterion. As noted below, a formal power analysis is expected when feasible. Qualitative studies need to provide a rationale for the sample size.

Statistics need to be clearly justified and explained, and appropriate for testing the hypotheses. There is often more than one appropriate statistical technique.

The purpose of the discussion is not to simply recapitulate the results. Instead the purpose is to put the findings in the context of prior literature, acknowledge limitations of the current study, and suggest specific implications for future research and applications to prevention, intervention, and/or policy.

Quality of writing is also important. It is not the reviewer’s role to copyedit a manuscript; however, it is important to comment on the overall quality of the writing and to indicate if there are sections of the paper that are difficult to understand and/or have major grammatical problems. Please provide these comments without making assumptions as to whether the author is a native English speaker; such assumptions are not always accurate and may be perceived as biased.

Authors are asked to prepare manuscripts according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association using the 7th edition. Authors must carefully review APA guidelines in advance of submission and follow them. It is difficult for reviewers and editors to judge the quality of a manuscript that does not adhere to APA's and this journal's requirements.  

All APA requirements are important; the ones listed below are particularly noteworthy:

• disclose all prior publications with this dataset in the cover letter (which is only seen by editors); 
• use bias-free language;
• double space the entire text and references, putting only one table or figure on a page at the end of the manuscript, using one-inch margins all around, and including a header and page numbers; and  
• minimize the use of acronyms so your manuscript is accessible to a wide audience.

Manuscripts submitted to Psychology of Violence should normally be no more than 30 double-spaced manuscript pages, inclusive of front matter, references, tables, and figures. Papers somewhat longer will be reviewed; however, authors are likely to be asked to shorten the paper if a revision is requested.

Psychology of Violence also has several style requirements, in order to facilitate the accessibility of information both within and across manuscripts. All manuscripts that remain under consideration at Psychology of Violence will be asked to include the following:

• A structured abstract divided into four sections with the headings: Objective, Method, Results, and Conclusions. The Objective should clearly communicate the novel contribution of the manuscript. Do not, however, claim that "this is the first study ever to..." Such a claim cannot be substantiated. In the Conclusion, please identify at least one specific implication and avoid boilerplate language such as "Implications will be discussed." Target length is no more than 250 words.
• Four to five keywords for all manuscripts.
• A statement that clearly describes the study's purpose must be provided in the first 3 paragraphs of the paper.
• The Introduction needs to end with numbered statements of hypotheses or research goals, and these need to be explicitly revisited in the Results and Discussion.
• Authors are expected to review the APA Style Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS) and verify that they have included all relevant methodological information for the type of study they conducted, including effect sizes when they can be calculated.
• Number of items, response categories, alpha, and scoring need to be presented for all measures. Validity should be addressed.
• Sample size: Qualitative studies need to provide a rationale for the sample size based on their specific methodology. Quantitative studies need to include a formal power analysis that corresponds to the hypotheses and data analytic approach whenever possible; alternative methods used to determine the precision of parameter estimates should be used when power analyses are not appropriate for the data analytic technique. For both qualitative and quantitative studies, methodological citations should be provided to justify the technique used.
• The Discussion needs separate subsections (in this order) for Limitations, Future Research Directions, and Prevention, Clinical, and Policy Implications. Regarding the implications subsection, at least one of the three types of implications listed above must be addressed and the heading should be modified to indicate those included (e.g., Prevention and Policy Implications or Clinical Implications).
• An honest assessment of the study's limitations is essential in the Limitations subsection of the Discussion. This section needs to describe the study's major methodological limitations and include a statement regarding the generalizability to other populations and contexts. The need to replicate exploratory or unexpected findings should be explicitly stated.

Per APA policy, authors presenting the results of randomized trials should rely on CONSORT guidelinesopens in new window.

Narrative comments

The main part of the review is detailed narrative comments.

The typical Psychology of Violence review ranges from a couple of paragraphs to a few pages of narrative that includes specific feedback for the authors. It is common for reviews to be organized in the order that issues arise in the manuscript. Some reviewers prefer to organize their reviews from what they consider to be the most to least important comments. Either organization is acceptable.

Authors often find it helpful if the comments are numbered, so they are more easily referred to in their cover letter explaining how they have revised the manuscript.

Use a constructive tone. Describe the study's strengths, as well as its weaknesses.

Narrative comments are shared with authors.

Structured ratings

The APA online manuscript system will request several ratings of different manuscript attributes, using a 5-point scale from Low to High. Examples include "Quality of Research (Design and Analysis)" and "Contribution of New Knowledge."

Structured ratings are not shared with authors.

Overall recommendation

Psychology of Violence uses the following recommendation categories:

Accept

This is generally reserved for manuscripts that have been through one or more revisions. It is important that manuscripts be as strong as possible, both in terms of the science and the clarity of presentation. Virtually every manuscript has room for improvement. "Accept" is an extremely rare initial decision.

Minor revision

Minor revision refers to less extensive edits, such as clarifying points or elaborating on the study's implications.

Questions about the adequacy of the rationale, the suitability of the measures, or the soundness of the statistical approach are seldom minor.

"Minor revision" also usually implies that there are only a few remaining issues to be addressed. Your review will be compiled with other reviews that are likely to raise different points. So if you have identified many points to address (certainly 10 or more), then it is unlikely to fall into the "minor revision" category.

Major revision

This recommendation is appropriate for a manuscript, with strong potential to make a novel contribution and advance our knowledge; however, there are some major problems that need to be addressed before the science can be fully evaluated. Recommendations for a substantially different analytical approach typically fall into this category, as a reanalysis of the data might cast the results in a very different light. This is also appropriate for papers that provide incomplete descriptions of one or more measures, if the adequacy of the operationalization cannot be determined.

Reject

This option is for manuscripts that have limited potential to contribute to the literature.

This could be due to insurmountable sampling or measurement problems (statistical problems are potentially more "fixable"). It can also be due to the limited scope of the study, especially if that seems to indicate a piecemeal approach to publication (for example, focusing on only two or three variables from a larger dataset that could potentially provide a more comprehensive analysis).

Although no author wants to receive a "reject" decision, rejection does serve several important purposes. We expect reject decisions will help researchers improve the design of their future studies and/or give them ideas about how to strengthen their submission for another outlet. These decisions help to maintain high standards of scientific rigor. Psychology of Violence, like most APA journals, is a selective journal and "reject" is a common editorial decision.

Although you are asked to make an overall recommendation, it is not shared with the authors. Please do not include your overall recommendation in the narrative text that authors receive. There are often differences of opinion among reviewers. It is the job of the action editor to reconcile the varying points of view and make a final decision based on all the reviewers' feedback and their knowledge of the journal's requirements.

Comments for editor only

As the name implies, "Comments for Editor Only" are not shared with authors.

This section is optional. Reviewers often use this space to state more succinctly and informally their overall perception of a manuscript. This is also an appropriate place to mention that there is an element of the method or statistical analysis that is beyond your expertise.

Reviewers are not expected to be experts in every aspect of a study's content and methodology. We often select reviewers with different, complementary areas of expertise. It is possible to make a valuable contribution to the review process by focusing on your areas of expertise. Please do not state in the narrative component of your review (which authors receive) that you do not know about a specific aspect of the paper. As noted above, you can include this information in the "Comments for Editor Only" section, which will not be seen by the authors.

There are usually numerous acceptable methodological and statistical choices. Authors need not have conducted the study, or analyzed the data, in the same way that you would have. A plurality of approaches benefits the field.

Violence is a sensitive topic. Thus, the adequacy of the operationalization of violence and other constructs that are socially undesirable and/or difficult to disclose is especially important for Psychology of Violence manuscripts.

Several areas of violence research are controversial. Psychology of Violence strives to maintain a balanced perspective throughout the review process.

We request reviews within 30 days to minimize response time to authors. This is the standard APA time frame. Keeping publication delays to a minimum promotes dissemination of findings and hence the advancement of science; minimizing the response time for decision letters is a key aspect of this. Keeping response times to a minimum also helps us attract stronger manuscripts.

Training the next generation of researchers is an essential function. It is usually permissible to involve graduate students as coreviewers. Per APA policy, please get permission from the action editor before inviting a student to coreview a particular manuscript.