BSGF – Earth Sciences Bulletin Reviewers’ Guidelines

Peer review is one of the pillars of the scientific research process. Before agreeing to review a manuscript, it is your professional responsibility to consider the following points:

• Do you have the skills required to evaluate the manuscript?
• Do you have a conflict of interest? If so, or in case of doubt, inform the editor.
• Can you submit your report within the deadline? If not, inform the editor to agree on the next steps.

Peer review ethics rules

• The peer review process must be confidential.
• Reports are personal and must not involve third parties, unless authorized by the editor.
• Reports must not be written with an artificial intelligence tool.

The review on a manuscript

The objective of your review is to provide the editor with the information allowing him/her to reach a decision and to mention avenues for improvement to the authors. The reports must be critical but constructive, understandable, and reasoned. The criticisms must not be directed at individuals and must be based on the facts presented. The reviewers must alert the editor in the event of plagiarism and/or content submitted for publication that has already been published elsewhere. The reviewers can indicate their areas of expertise and their limits.

When reading the manuscript, consider all of the material submitted, the text, figures, tables, and appendices. Your expertise is required on the following points:

• The relevance of the presentation of the scientific context, the originality of the work presented, and its adequacy with the outlines of the journal.
• The quality of the strategy, the precision, and the validity of the methodology.
• The quality of the text, figures, data.
• The robustness of the critical analysis and whether the conclusions are rationally demonstrated.

The format is free but you can start with a summary of the content of the manuscript and the main results. You can then make an inventory of the points that require clarification, discussion, correction and end with your general opinion. You may not agree with the interpretation proposed by the authors but you must allow the authors to develop their argument, as long as the conclusions are supported by the elements provided in the manuscript.

The report must include a proposal for the follow-up to the manuscript among the following:

• Accepted: The manuscript is ready to be published in its current format.
• Minor revision: The manuscript will be ready to be published after minor corrections.
• Major revision: The manuscript requires major modifications before publication, in the formatting, presentation of the context, presentation or even acquisition of data, critical analysis or development of the model.
• Rejected: The manuscript is not ready to be published and includes gaps too important in substance and/or form to be considered further in the editorial process. It is particularly important in this case to provide factual elements to support the decision and indicate whether it is due to a lack of maturity of the project and/or technical bias.