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Physical Therapy Information for Manuscript Reviewers
If you are NOT a manuscript reviewer but are interested in becoming one… please forward your CV, including your peer-reviewed publication record, to janreynolds{at}apta.org.
PTJ’s integrity and credibility depend on unbiased, critical evaluation by content experts. If you have a conflict of interest or know of any reason why you might be unable to provide an unbiased review of a given manuscript, please let the Editorial Office know. Policies related to ethical peer review are currently being codified by a committee of PTJ editors; those policies will be posted online as soon as they are finalized. If you are a Reviewer and have any concerns about PTJ's policies, please contact the managing editor at janreynolds{at}apta.org.
Most manuscripts are evaluated by 2 Reviewers. The identity of the Reviewers is withheld from authors to allow for candid evaluations of manuscripts. For Research Reports, Technical Reports, and Case Reports, the effort is made to obscure the authors’ identity to help ensure the integrity of the review process; however, it is PTJ’s policy never to eliminate any element—such as a previously published related article—that is relevant to the review process, even if this compromises masking (or anonymity of authors in general). Certain types of manuscripts, such as Updates and Perspectives, are not subjected to a masked review. In these instances, the Reviewers will know the identity of the authors, but the Reviewers' identity will still be withheld from the authors.
Under PTJ’s new Editor in Chief, Rebecca Craik, PT, PhD, FAPTA, the Journal is revisiting all aspects of peer-reviewed publication, including the types of statistics that authors should be including in their papers. The goal is to provide clinicians with the information that they need for evidence-based practice. A tutorial is being developed to guide Reviewers in what to look for. You'll be alerted as soon as the tutorial is posted online.
Currently, Reviewers are asked to identify the major strengths of the paper, provide major (essential) and minor (nonessential) recommendations for the author (eg, regarding rationale for the work; relevance; quality of design, methods, analysis, and interpretation; importance and validity of conclusions), and recommend a decision. The decisions are as follows:
Reviews are submitted online via PTJ Manuscript Central, which is hosted by ScholarOne. As a Reviewer, you will have access to your own “Reviewer Center” that will contain the manuscripts to which you are assigned, along with other pertinent information. (You will also have access to your own “Author Center.”) The Editorial Office sends Reviewers a notification once your data have been entered into the system.
If you ever forget your password, you can go to http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ptjournal/, and click on “Check for Existing Account.” You will be prompted to enter your e-mail address, which serves as your user ID. The system will send you an e-mail that contains your password, which you will use to logon. You can change your password at any time.
You will receive an e-mail invitation to review a manuscript, which you can accept or decline by replying to the e-mail. If you feel that a manuscript has been inappropriately assigned to you, please let the Editorial Office know; that helps us improve our accuracy.
If you agree to review, you’ll receive a confirmation e-mail with a reminder about how to access the manuscript. The system sends out regular automatic reminders. NOTE: If there are extenuating circumstances and you need an extended deadline, you can arrange an extension with manuscripts coordinator Karen Darley via e-mail.
When you are ready to submit your comments, logon to ScholarOne, click on your Review Center, find the manuscript listed under “Manuscripts Pending Review,” click on the Review button, and then click on Score the Manuscript. We recommend that you FIRST compose your comments in a Word document, then copy and paste your comments into the textboxes in ScholarOne. (That way you will always have a copy of your comments even if there is a technical glitch and your comments get “lost in the ether.”)
IMPORTANT: When you have finished entering your comments, click the Save Review button located beneath the review; otherwise, none of the information that you have entered will be saved in the system.
On the next screen, you will be given the choice to leave the review “open” for additional comments or to submit it finally to the editor. You MUST click on Submit Review to Editorial Board Member to finalize your review and make it viewable.
Once you submit your review, you will receive an indication either that the review was successfully submitted or that some of the required fields were left blank. If you receive the latter message, you will have an opportunity to provide the missing information.
The assigned Editorial Board member will read the manuscript and your comments and those of the other Reviewer and then make a final decision. (The Journal editors oversee these decisions for consistency.) You will receive a copy of the decision letter along with other Reviewer comments. In this way, you will be able to see the thinking of all of the participants involved in the review process.
The Editorial Board member rates the quality of the reviews and sometimes posts special comments to the Reviewers, which usually are sent to the Reviewer via e-mail.
You may contact the Editorial Board member or the managing editor at any time with questions or concerns.
If you have any technical questions related to the online system, contact the manuscripts coordinator at karendarley{at}apta.org.
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