Peer Review Process

Peer Review Process

AMJEL applies a double-anonymized peer review process to ensure an independent, fair, and academically rigorous evaluation of all submissions.

1. Initial Editorial Screening

Each submitted manuscript is first assessed by the editorial office and the Editor-in-Chief, or an assigned editor, to determine whether it fits the journal’s aims and scope and meets the journal’s minimum standards of quality, originality, structure, language, and ethical compliance. Manuscripts may be rejected at this stage without external review if they are clearly outside the journal’s scope, contain serious methodological weaknesses, fail to follow the author guidelines, or show evidence of ethical concerns.

2. Similarity and Ethics Check

Before external review, manuscripts are screened for similarity, citation integrity, and possible ethical concerns, including plagiarism, duplicate submission, manipulated references, fabricated data, and undeclared use of generative AI where disclosure is required.

3. External Peer Review

Manuscripts that pass editorial screening are sent to at least two reviewers with relevant expertise. Reviewers are asked to evaluate the manuscript’s originality, theoretical contribution, methodological quality, analytical strength, clarity of presentation, ethical integrity, and relevance to the journal’s field.

4. Editorial Decision

Based on the reviewers’ reports, the editor will make one of the following decisions:

• accept;
• accept with minor revisions;
• revise and resubmit (major revisions);
• reject.

The final decision rests with the Editor-in-Chief and/or the assigned editor, who may seek an additional review when necessary.

5. Revision Stage

Authors receiving a revision decision must submit a revised manuscript together with a detailed response letter explaining how each reviewer comment has been addressed. Revised manuscripts may be returned to the original reviewers for further evaluation.

6. Confidentiality and Conflicts of Interest

Editors and reviewers must treat all submitted manuscripts as confidential documents. Reviewers must decline review invitations when a conflict of interest exists or when they are unable to provide an objective and timely report.

7. Appeals and Complaints

Authors may submit a reasoned appeal against an editorial decision by writing to the editorial office. Appeals are reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief and, where appropriate, by an independent editorial advisor or additional reviewer. Appeals must be based on academic or procedural grounds rather than disagreement alone.

AMJEL does not guarantee acceptance, and editorial decisions are based solely on scholarly merit, methodological quality, ethical soundness, and relevance to the journal’s scope.