RULES FOR REVIEWING AND PUBLICATION OF MANUSCRIPTS,

submitted to the Russian Journal of Seismology

1. We use a single-blind peer review (the authors do not know who the reviewers are) for all materials coming to the editorial office corresponding to its subject with the aim of their expert evaluation. The basic principles of peer-reviewing, which are guided by the Editorial Board (hereinafter the Editorial Board) and the Editorial Publishing Council (hereinafter the Editorial Council) in their activities: objectivity, anonymity, confidentiality at all stages of reviewing and taking into account the possibility of a conflict of interest.
2. Reviewing is carried out by members of the editorial board and invited reviewers - leading scientists specializing in the subject of the submitted manuscript and having publications on the subject of the reviewed article over the past three years. Peer reviewers do not involve specialists working in the same unit of the institution where the work is done. Each manuscript is reviewed by at least two reviewers. Reviews are stored in the journal for five years from the date of publication of the manuscript. The editorial staff of the journal necessarily provides reviews of manuscripts at the request of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation.
3. Reviewing is carried out confidentially. Reviewers are notified that the manuscripts sent to them are the private property of the authors and relate to information not subject to disclosure. Reviewers are not allowed to make copies of articles for their needs. Reviewers are forbidden to give part of the manuscript for review to another person without the permission of the editors. Reviewers, as well as editorial staff, are not entitled to use knowledge about the content of the work before its publication in their own interests. Violation of confidentiality is possible only in the case of a statement of inaccuracy or falsification of materials, in all other cases its preservation is mandatory.
4. The distribution of articles by reviewers is carried out by the secretary of the editorial board, or the head of the publishing group. The decision on the appointment of specific reviewers can be made personally: by the chief editor and his deputy, executive secretary of the editorial board, head of the publishing group, as well as responsible editors in the areas. Authors of articles can express their wishes on the membership of the reviewers group. The authors' proposals on the membership of reviewers can be accepted if the editorial board does not doubt about the objectivity of the proposed reviewers. An article that does not correspond to the subject of the journal or does not meet the "Requirements for Authors" is returned to the authors.
5. The manuscript is sent to the reviewer along with a cover letter (Appendix 1 - in Russian, Appendix 2 - in English). Peer review of manuscripts submitted to the Journal is anonymous by default. The reviewer has the right to disclose his name (personally or through the editorial board) to the authors of the manuscript at will.
6. Accepting the manuscript the reviewer agrees to give an objective conclusion within one month. The reviewer must fill out a review form (Appendix 3 - in Russian, Appendix 4 - in English). If the reviewer does not have any comments on the content of the work (excluding comments of a technical nature that can be indicated on the manuscript margins), the reviewer marks the corresponding item in the questionnaire (“Acceptable without corrections” or “Acceptable with editorial corrections”) and in this case, there is no need in the detailed review and filling out paragraph "Reviewer's Recommendations". In all other cases, the reviewer must provide in the paragraph “Reviewer's Recommendations” a detailed review of the article, in which all comments to the text of the work should be listed. If the reviewer gives a conclusion on the possibility of publishing the article after making substantive corrections, then the reviewer indicates whether it is necessary to be familiarized with the revised article. Reviewers return manuscript with review to the Editorial Board.
7. If the reviewer makes a conclusion on the possibility of publication after entering corrections (technical or subject part), the executive secretary of the editorial board has the right, at own decision (as well after consultations with other members of the editorial board) to transfer the text of the review either to the manuscript authors for amending and preparing a response or for a preliminary review by the Editorial Board.
8. The authors of the manuscript, who received the review with comments, have the right: (a) to withdraw the manuscript, (b) agree with all, or part of the comments, and make the corresponding revision, (c) disagree with all or part of the comments, giving a detailed and reasoned response to these comments. The revised manuscript is submitted to the Editorial Board together with the text of the authors' reply to the comments of the reviewer.
9. After receiving a response from the authors, the Executive Secretary of the Editorial Board, or the head of the publishing group, is entitled at its discretion (as well as following consultations with other members of the Editorial Board) to decide on the transfer of the corrected text of the manuscript and the authors' response to the reviewer (s) either to make an additional conclusion on the possibility of publication in the amended form ,or to make a preliminary review of the feedback and response of the author at the Editorial Board.
10. An additional conclusion of the reviewer can be sent to the authors for further work on the manuscript, or left for consideration at a meeting of the Editorial Board.
11. An additional conclusion of the reviewer can be sent by the Executive Secretary of the Editorial Board to the authors for further work on the manuscript similar to the first review ,or left for consideration at a meeting of the Editorial Board.
12. After receiving the review (s) of the reviewer (s), as well as the responses of the authors (if the manuscript was previously handed over to the authors for revision) and getting additional opinions of the reviewers, the manuscript, reviews and conclusions are considered at a meeting of the Editorial Board. Based on the results of the review, the Editorial Council makes a decision: a) to approve the article for print - if there are positive reviews and (or) additional conclusions; b) reject the article - in the presence of negative reviews and (or) additional conclusions; c) send the article for additional review to another specialist (s) - in case of doubt about the objectivity or competence of the reviewer (s); d) transmit feedback, or additional conclusions of the reviewer (s) to the authors to make changes and prepare a response, if this has not been done before; e) transmit the authors' response to the reviewer to make an additional conclusion on the possibility of publication in an amended form, if this has not been done before; f) approve the article, if the authors and the reviewer agree to publish the comments of the reviewer and the authors' responses in the form of small articles in the Discussion section, if the manuscript of the main article contains assumptions and hypotheses that cannot be proved or disproved at the current level development of science, or constructive criticism of other scientific works (published in any publications, or voiced at conferences, etc.) is available, or the results of research can be ambiguously interpreted.
13. Reviews of  the reviewers along with the decision of the Editorial Council are sent  to the authors of the rejected articles. The editors of the journal do not store manuscripts that are not accepted for publication. Manuscripts that receive a negative decision from the reviewer are not published and are also not returned to the author.
14. The editorial staff of the journal necessarily provides reviews of manuscripts at the request of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation.
15. The originals of reviews are kept in the editorial office of the Journal for 5 years from the date of their signing by the reviewer.
16. The order of publication of articles is set in accordance with the editorial plan of the journal.

 

Rules for Manuscript Reviewers

   The decision to publish each article submitted is made on the basis of an analysis of its scientific novelty, practical relevance, the research methods used, the reliability of the results, the validity of the conclusions, the clarity of presentation. A significant role in the decision-making process on the publication of an article is assigned to peer review.

   The main purpose of reviewing is to improve the quality of published articles.

   The mail goals of reviewing:

– get the opinion of an expert whose research interests are closest to the topic of the article, and thereby provide the editorial board with information important for decision-making;

– to concentrate the attention of authors to those aspects or specific places of the article that remain incomprehensible to readers, they seem to be insufficiently substantiated or unproven and require corrections or additional clarifications.

   The goals and objectives of the review suggest that an important component of any review should be specific comments and questions to the author, the answers to which should improve the quality of the article. It is desirable that the reviewer noted the importance and novelty of the results obtained in the work. If ,in the opinion of the reviewer, the results are not new, you should provide links to relevant works. In this regard, one should evaluate how adequately the author assessed the place of his work among the works related to the subject, and did not omit sources of fundamental importance for this work in the list of references. A special place in the review should be given to assessing the reliability of the results obtained and the validity of the conclusions made.

   The Editorial Council is aware that any review to some extent contains an element of subjectivity, therefore, to ensure maximum objectivity of the resulting conclusion on the possibility of publishing an article, it sends any submitted article to at least two reviewers. In those cases where the reviews of reviewers about the article turn out to be fundamentally different, the Editorial Council can initiate discussing all the reviews received from one or each of the reviewers. The received reviews, together with the cover letter of the Editorial Board, are sent to the author of the article with a request to give reasoned answers to the comments and, if necessary, make changes to the article. After receiving a response from the author, the article may be sent for a new review.

   After the review process of the article is completed, the Editorial Council, based on an analysis of all the reviews of all reviewers, the responses of the authors and the corrections made, makes the final decision on the possibility of its publication. In this case, additional materials may be attracted, and the opinion of the Editorial Board in some cases may differ from the opinion of reviewers.

   The Editorial Council intends to maximize the confidentiality of the submitted article and the review process and asks reviewers to strictly adhere to this principle. This means that reviewers should not discuss the materials of the peer-reviewed article with anyone other than the authors of the article and members of the Editorial Board and Editorial Council.

 The Editorial Council is aware of the possibility of a conflict of interest exists between individual specialists dealing with similar problems caused by a variety of reasons, but considers that in most cases a conflict of interest cannot be an obstacle to sending an article for review by a particular specialist. This is due to the fact that the Editorial Council reserves the right to make a final decision on the publication of an article, which in some cases may not coincide with the opinion of the reviewer. At the same time, the Editorial Council asks reviewers not to review the articles if the objectivity of their review may be distorted by personal or official relationships with the authors or any other circumstances.

   In accordance with international practice,