Guidelines for Reviews

AJPS contributions to knowledge generation, production, communication, and value depend on the integrity and quality of the peer review process of submitted manuscripts. This process, in turn, relies on the thought and time that a reviewer invests into a manuscript. If you are selected as a reviewer, please know that AJPS very much appreciates your investment and acknowledges your contribution each year. Reviewers who return their reviews in a timely fashion will be given a 30% discount on any publication from Wiley-Blackwell.

Review Preparation AJPS contacts a reviewer by email and directs her/him to Editorial Manager. When beginning to review a manuscript, please do the following:

AJPS requests that reviews address the following points about the merits of the manuscript in as long a review the reviewer chooses to provide (although a 1-1.5 page length is typical). The points include, but are not limited, to:
• The extent to which the manuscript addresses an interesting and important research problem or question.
• The extent to which the manuscript demonstrates high quality theorizing and/or state-of-the-art methodological use.
• The amount of creativity or innovation of research informing the manuscript.
• The extent to which the manuscript engages the relevant research literature and contributes to the accumulation of knowledge.
• The degree to which the manuscript effectively and informatively communicates its contribution to a sophisticated general political science audience.
At the end of a review please provide an overall recommendation as follows:

• Must publish as is
• Must publish with minor revisions (with particular revisions stated in the review)
• Revise and Resubmit – This recommendation must include a statement of particular improvements. It should be made only when the research and manuscript fundamentals are sound (e.g., the theory, models, and hypotheses are strong, the dataset is complete, and the literature is consulted) and the manuscript has a greater than 85% probability-of-successful revision and re-review in the time period specified.
• Decline to publish

Review Submission Reviews should be submitted as an anonymous file through Editorial Manager preferably no later than 30 days from receipt of the review request. An individual should not review if s/he was an author’s doctoral dissertation supervisor, has been a co-author of an author in the past 12 months, is a colleague in an author’s department or comparable academic unit, or has a family or other personal relationship with an author. If you are unable to review, please recommend 1-3 other qualified reviewers. In addition, an individual who reviewed the manuscript for another journal is not automatically disqualified as a reviewer for The AJPS. Questions or recommendations can be sent to the same email address or by telephoning the Editorial Office at (713)348-2261.