Peer Review Process

The GTJ peer review goes through a process which are itemized and explained below.

Assessment by the Editorial Board

The GTJ Managing Editor, upon acknowledging receipt of a submitted manuscript, will review to ensure it complies with GTJ guidelines and that the manuscript is within the scope of the Journal. He/she will also ensure that the manuscript's similarity index does not exceed 20% by subjecting the submitted manuscript to a similarity check using Turnitin's plagiarism checker. Thereafter, the manuscript will be forwarded to the Editor-in-Chief, who makes the final decision after cross-checking to ensure that all guidelines are followed and the manuscript is fit for GTJ.  The Editor-in-Chief then assigns the article to the Review Editors, who will process the manuscript further by assigning a minimum of two external reviewers to it. It is important to state that the Editorial Board team may decide to reject any manuscript that is not in compliance with the GTJ standards and inform the author (s).

Decision on Manuscript

A submitted manuscript may be rejected based on the following (i) if the manuscript is not within the scope of GTJ (ii) the write-up is not in accordance with GTJ’s requirements for relevance and novelty, (iii) the similarities index exceeds 20%, (iv) if the integrity of the presented results is in doubt, (v) a manuscript with a lack of novelty or originality can still be rejected after the review process, and (vi) manuscripts that do not align with GTJ’s scope will be returned to the author, and the author will be advised to submit to an appropriate publication outlet.

Blind Peer Review

Assigned manuscripts are reviewed by a minimum of two experts, of which a single negative review is enough for the Editor-in-Chief to decide on the report. The identities of reviewers and authors usually remain anonymous so as to have a double-blind review of submissions. After the review, the Managing Editor evaluates the reviews' opinions and makes a recommendation to the Editorial Board for the final decision. The manuscript may be accepted as it is (though rare), rejected, or sent back to the authors for revision, and whether minor or major revisions will be communicated.

Submission of Revised Manuscripts

When authors have revised their manuscript in response to the reviewers' comments, they are to submit the revised manuscript together with their response (s) to the reviewers’ comments. The revised version may be sent once again to the original reviewers to confirm if the revisions have been adequately carried out. Depending on the reviewers' comments, the article may be accepted or re-reviewed.