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Guidelines for Referees

Dear Manuscript Reviewer,

Thank you for agreeing to review for Polish Psychological Bulletin. Would you please complete the review and return it to the Editor-in-Chief or to the Issue Editor who gave you the manuscript within four weeks. Please respect the deadline. As an author, you undoubtedly appreciate the importance of minimizing delays. The Polish Psychological Bulletin is relying on prompt response times from reviewers to reduce publication time. If you do not have time to personally review the paper, please inform the Editor immediately. In this case, suggestions of names of alternate reviewers are appreciated.

Your opinion should be written in English (or: in case both Author and Reviewer are Poles, in English or in Polish). 
Reviews are welcome in almost any format (via e-mail, computer disk, or typed copy). E-mail is easiest and fastest, since your review will not have to be retyped. This is especially important for submissions near the deadline.

Conscientious peer review of manuscripts is usually a time consuming task but is essential to assure high quality content for the Polish Psychological Bulletin. When reviewing a manuscript, keep in mind that to be published, a paper must provide useful data or information for the international audience of the Journal. If a manuscript has only local relevance, its usefulness to the general audiences of the Journal is limited.

Comments should be as complete and detailed as possible and contain clear opinions about strengths, weaknesses, relevance, and importance to the field. Specific comments that cite manuscript sections, pages, paragraphs, or lines are most helpful. Reviewers should consider themselves as mentors of the author(s). Comments should be constructive and suggestions should be offered to enhance the manuscript.

Points important for the reviewer to consider:

• Is the topic of the manuscript appropriate for the Journal?
• Is the information of significant interest to the readers?
• Is the title accurate and sufficiently descriptive of the content?
• Is the purpose or objective clearly stated?
• Are the methods appropriate and scientifically sound?
• Are appropriate statistical tests used?
• Are the conclusions supported by the data presented?
• Are the tables and figures well designed and add to understanding of the text?
• Is information in the tables and figures redundant?
• Are the references cited the most appropriate to support the manuscript?
• Should the manuscript be shortened?

After careful consideration, the reviewer should provide one of the following recommendations to the Editor regarding publication:

• Accepted
• Minor revision
• Substantial revision
• Resubmition
• Rejection

Reviewers should not:

• Contact authors to discuss a manuscript.
• Reveal, cite, or in any way disclose information about a manuscript prior to publication.
• Agree to review a manuscript if there is an actual or perceived conflict of interest. Potential conflicts can be discussed with the Editor.

It is permissible to request the assistance of colleagues to review a manuscript. The names of the additional reviewers should be provided to the Editor