Review criteria
In the review the referees are asked to take into account the evaluation criteria below.
Technical content
- originality/novelty/innovation/creativity/contribution
- scientific relevance/importance (research or engineering)
- methodology
- results, data analysis
- completeness
- technical soundness/plausibility
- free of commercialism
- prior publication found
Presentation
- structure of the paper
- clarity of problem statement and objective
- discussion
- conclusion
- quality and size of illustrations
- clarity of writing, standard of language
- references (number and quality)
- title concise and informative
- abstract (objective, scope, results)
- adequate length
General
- suitability for the journal/of interest to the MS readers
- suggested type of article: research paper, review paper, short communication
- recommendation: accept as is, minor revisions, major revisions with rebuttal, reject
- overall quality rating
Access review, peer review, and interactive public discussion (MSD)
Manuscripts submitted to MS at first undergo a rapid access review by the topic editor (initial manuscript evaluation), which is not meant to be a full scientific review but to identify and sort out manuscripts with obvious major deficiencies in view of the above principal evaluation criteria.
If they are not immediately rejected, they will be posted on the Mechanical Sciences Discussions (MSD) website, the discussion forum of MS, where they are subject to full peer review and interactive public discussion.
Peer-review completion (MS)
At the end of the interactive public discussion, the authors may make their final response and submit a revised manuscript. Based on the referee comments, other relevant comments, and the authors' response in the public discussion, the revised manuscript is re-evaluated and rated by the topic editor. If rated excellent or good in all of the principal criteria and specific aspects listed above, the revised manuscript will normally be accepted for publication in MS. Additional advice from the referees in the evaluation and rating of the revised manuscript will be requested by the topic editor if the public discussion in MSD is not sufficiently conclusive.