The manuscript must be ANONYMOUS, and should NOT mention any author anywhere.
The manuscript must be in a .docx file, compatible with Microsoft word version 2007 and later.
The manuscript file should NOT include the abstract or keywords. The first page starts with the title of the paper followed by the first section (e.g. Introduction).
The manuscript file should NOT contain any acknowledgment and information about funding. Adding acknowledgments and funding will be possible before final publication.
The manuscript file must not be more than 50 pages in total from the introduction (page 1) to the end of the references, which are after the appendices. While it is the maximum limit, shorter manuscripts (fewer than 20 pages) are strongly preferred and are reviewed faster.
Pages should not be numbered. Do not add anything in the header of the pages. Tables and figures should be numbered and placed within the content near where they are cited.
The text should have 1.5 line space and be left-justified; use Times New Roman (or Georgia) 18 point font for the title of each section and size 11 for the body text; and have a one-inch margin (normal).
In-text citations should (mostly) follow the Harvard referencing style (authors’ last names, year), but unlike the Harvard style, the citation should include the month of the year (2017 Dec) to cite the works of the same author in the same year.
References can follow the IEEE or Harvard referencing style, but it is highly recommended to use the PaperScore referencing style wherein the references are sorted in chronological order (starting with the oldest), and each reference follows this format:
Year, Authors’ full names separated by ampersand, “Title,” Source [, Optional Information].
Source is the name of the journal, conference, or book. No other information (publisher, volume, issue, track, page…) is needed as long as each reference can be found uniquely with search engines. Here is an example of PaperScore style references:
References
PaperScore does not accept or reject manuscripts, but rather it grades them, and then it will be up to the author(s) to decide whether to have their manuscript published with the scores and comments or not. To this end, PaperScore asks each reviewer to give four rating scores to each manuscript:
This dimension is about the structure, style, clarity, and brevity of the manuscript. Generally, well-organized and well-written manuscripts get higher rating scores on this dimension. But disorganized sections with grammatical or spelling errors will result in lower rating scores. If a manuscript violates any of the Formatting and Style Requirements (Author Guidelines), it should receive a rating score of zero, which halts the review process and un-submits the manuscript. One of the requirements is anonymity.
This dimension reflects how accurate, reliable and valid the results and findings are. Following a rigorous and scientific research methodology can result in higher scores for this dimension. This includes defining suitable constructs, dependent variables, and control variables as well as collecting enough reliable data for empirical studies. Also, accurate and meticulous mathematical proofs or statistical analysis, and sound theoretical reasoning will result in higher scores for this dimension. But overlooking confounding variables or any analytical error will lower the rating score for this dimension, especially if it could invalidate the findings of the manuscript.
This dimension is about how much the manuscript contributes to advancing knowledge, and how innovative, new, and relevant its contributions are. Both theoretical and practical contributions matter. A thorough literature review and a clear explanation of how the manuscript contributes above and beyond the existing literature will result in higher scores for this dimension. However, missing important references, not clarifying the contributions, or claiming someone else’s innovation will lower this rating score significantly.
This dimension captures the importance and value of the manuscript for academicians and practitioners. Practical applications in real world are valuable and will result in a higher score for this dimension. Also, an important theoretical model with a potentially high impact in science and academia can result in a higher score for this dimension. Moreover, giving a clear and strong motivation for the work and providing valuable insights can improve this score.
After collecting the rating scores from the reviewers, PaperScore calculates and reports the median of the scores for each dimension to the authors, along with the anonymous comments left by the reviewers. Author(s) and readers can only see anonymous comments and aggregated median scores, but not the names of the reviewers or their individual scores. This allows the reviewers to express their opinions freely.
Each journal can have a profile on PaperScore. On the profile of each scientific journal, users can evaluate and review that journal in four dimensions and express their experience with that journal. The reviews will help other researchers to select which journals to read or submit their manuscripts to.
This metric reflects the journal's history of publishing high-quality, novel and valid articles. It may correlate with other indices such as impact factor and h-index within each field of study, but such indices scale differently in different fields and should be normalized to account for variations across scientific disciplines. A higher score indicates a wider readership and is positively correlated with readers’ confidence in using and relying on the results of the articles published in the journal. Also, a higher score indicates a larger number of submissions to the journal and a lower acceptance rate on average.
This score indicates whether the journal's decisions to accept or reject articles have been reasonable. This score is lower if the journal has accepted many flawed manuscripts (error type I) or has rejected many high quality valuable manuscripts (error type II). It is possible that the journal has not published many flawed articles, but has rejected many valid high quality submissions. It is hard to know about the rejected submissions. If you have experienced such editorial errors by a journal editor, please report them in the "Experience with this journal" section.
This metric indicates how relevant the reviewers' comments are to the content of the submitted manuscripts. A higher scores mean more relevant and comprehensive comments. Since most journals do not publish reviewers' comments, users can give this score only if their manuscripts have gone through the peer-review process in the journal and have received comments from the reviewers of the journal. To support their evaluations, users can provide their records of peer-reviewed manuscripts under the "Experience with this journal" section.
This metric is about the average time from submission to decision for each manuscript, adjusted for the number of revisions. A higher score reflects faster editorial and reviewer response times. The final decision can be rejection or acceptance. The response time matters in either case. This score is relative and accounts for differences in review times across different scientific fields, making it more informative. To support their reviews, users can submit records of their peer-reviewed manuscripts under the "Experience with this journal" section.
For each journal, PaperScore will show the median of the submitted rating scores for each dimension after weighting each score based on the user’s declared experience with the journal. The public can only see the comments and the aggregated median scores, but not the individual scores. This allows the users to express their opinions freely.
