Peer review process

The article review process applicable to the publication process of the periodical “MAZOVIA Regional Studies”

1. The review process assists the Editorial Office of the periodical “MAZOVIA Regional Studies” in making editorial decisions, including the acceptance of a text for publication or its disqualification.
2. Each article submitted to the Editorial Office of the periodical undergoes a peer review process. The bibliography and abstract are an integral part of the article and are submitted for peer review.
3. Before being sent to the Reviewer, the article is pre-verified by the plagiat.pl system for authenticity and originality. If plagiarism is detected, the Editorial Office notifies both the Author’s supervisors and the author of the original work. In such a situation, the text is not peer reviewed.
4. Each article is reviewed by two independent Reviewers.
5. The Editorial Office selects the Reviewer with appropriate expertise and experience, consistent with the subject matter of the article, in such a way as to exclude conflict of interest.
6. The Author and the Reviewer do not know each other’s identity (double blind peer review).
7. The Reviewer may refuse to provide an opinion, if the Reviewer considers that the subject matter and subject area of the text are not within the Reviewer’s competence and research interests, does not have sufficient time to evaluate the text within the timeframe proposed by the Editorial Office, or identifies a reasonable suspicion of a conflict of interest, arising from competitiveness, collaboration or other relationships of a personal, financial or professional nature with the Author of the text or institutions associated with its creation. In such a case, the Editorial Office decides to select another expert for peer review.
8. The Author and the Reviewer do not contact each other. All correspondence between the Author and the Reviewer, if necessary, is carried out through the Editorial Office.
9. The reviewer undertakes not to disclose any information about the reviewed article to unauthorised parties.
10. The Reviewer cannot use the content of the unpublished article in any way.
11. The review refers only to the scientific value of the text and is objective and impartial in nature. The Editorial Office does not allow any personal criticism of the Author in the review.
12. The Reviewer should draw the Editorial Office’s attention to any worrying signals indicating possible similarity of the analysed work to other texts on the same subject or violation of ethics principles.
13. A standardised review sheet is used to review the text, which concludes with a proposal to publish or reject the text. The article is evaluated against the following evaluation criteria:
    • cognitive value (originality of approach, whether and to what extent the work represents a new approach to the problem);
    • evaluation of the layout of the work (structure, division of content, order of chapters);
    • substantive evaluation of the work (aim, research questions/hypothesis, methods);
    • evaluation of the formal side of the work (correctness of language, control of writing technique, tables, charts);
    • literature (selection and use).
14. The Reviewer may recommend:
    • to publish the text without any changes;
    • to publish the text after minor corrections;
    • to introduce significant changes and re-review;
    • to reject the article.
15. In the event of a conditional review, the Editorial Office may admit the article for publication, if the Author introduces the corrections proposed by the Reviewer to the text.
16. If significant changes need to be introduced to the article, the Author makes the modifications and the text is submitted for re-review pursuant to the rules described above.
17. The final decision on the publication of the text is made by the Editorial Office of the periodical “MAZOVIA Regional Studies”.
18. Rules governing the use of AI tools in the review process for articles submitted to the Editorial Office of the periodical “MAZOVIA Regional Studies”:
    • Reviewers bear full responsibility for the reliability, accuracy, and integrity of the review process. No part of the text may be processed by AI without an Author’s consent and without disclosure of this fact.
    • At every stage of the review process, the principles of transparency in the use of AI, confidentiality and responsibility for the content of articles are observed.
    • Articles and correspondence relating to publications are treated as confidential documents. Transferring them to AI tools without the Author’s consent is unacceptable.
    • Neither the Editorial Office nor Reviewers may use AI tools to evaluate articles or create the review. Evaluating scientific work requires critical thinking and in-depth analysis that exceed the capabilities of artificial intelligence and can only be performed by human being.

A policy on the use of generative artificial intelligence tools applicable in the publication process of the scientific periodical “MAZOVIA Regional Studies” is available under the AI Policy tab.

Review form