Journal of Pesticide Safety Education

Journal of Pesticide Safety Education

Instructions for Reviewers

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Review and Evaluation Process

Peer Reviewers

The Journal of Pesticide Safety Education (JPSE) is a peer-reviewed publication that is the official journal of the American Association of Pesticide Safety Educators (AAPSE). An Editorial Board composed of AAPSE members, with backgrounds in a variety of subject areas and from different parts of the country, serve on the Board. Board members are appointed for three-year terms by the Editor, with the concurrence of the AAPSE Board of Directors. A list of current Editorial Board members can be found on the JPSE World Wide Web Site under the heading "Editorial Board." The JPSE Web Site address is: http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JPSE/ . Information about AAPSE can be found on the AAPSE Web Site at http://aapse.ext.vt.edu/ .

The Review Process

The JPSE operates using a blind review process. That is, all reference to the author(s) is removed before the manuscript is sent out to reviewers.

A set of criteria are used by reviewers to evaluate manuscripts submitted to the JPSE. Reviewers are asked to assign a numerical rating from 1 (weak) to 10 (strong) to each criterion and provide comments on a rating sheet and/or on the manuscript itself. This process is handled through e-mail, unless the reviewer wishes to write on the manuscript and return a hardcopy to the Editor.

Board members serve as reviewers of the manuscripts except where a particular topic may fall outside the expertise of the Editorial Board as a whole. In this case, an appropriate reviewer will be sought to review the manuscript. Feature Article manuscripts are reviewed by three Board members or appropriate reviewers. Ideas at Work and Research in Brief manuscripts are reviewed by two Board members or appropriate reviewers. Tools of the Trade and Commentary manuscripts are reviewed by the Editor.

Reviewers are asked to make a disposition on each manuscript they review, which is submitted to the Editor. They can recommend:

• Publish manuscript
• Publish with minor revisions
• Publish with major revisions
• Use ideas and start over
• Reject manuscript

The Editor weighs the reviewers' comments and recommends disposition for each manuscript in making the final publication decision. When authors are asked to revise and resubmit manuscripts, the revision may be sent for another round of reviews by the Editorial Board members or reviewed by the editor. That decision is made at the discretion of the editor.

Criteria for Evaluation

Criteria vary somewhat depending upon the review category (Feature Article, Ideas at Work, etc.). The criteria for each category are listed below.

Feature Article

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Content Criteria