Submit to the Journal of Interactive Narrative

1. Initial Screening
After an article is submitted to a journal, a journal editor screens the manuscript and decides whether to send it for full peer review. Editors will consider the following aspects:

1. Is the manuscript good enough quality to be sent for peer review?

2. Does it conform to the aims and scope of the journal and has it followed the style guidelines and instructions for authors?

3. Does it make a significant contribution to the existing literature?

4. Are there any tech issues? (e.g. Software delivered as part of the submission is crashing)

5. At this stage, the editor can desk reject the manuscript, after coordination with the managing editor and/or editor-in-chief. 

2. Peer-Review Starts
Only after clearing the initial screening is the article sent to two or more peer reviewers. These are sourced from our distinguished multi-disciplinary editorial board and a pool of qualified external reviewers. 

3. Duration
The Journal of Interactive Narrative aims to have all submissions go through their initial review within three months of receipt.

4. Additional Reviewers
If a manuscript requires specialized expertise, additional domain experts will be included to assure quality reviews, e.g. a medical expert for work applying interactive narratives in the area of health. 

5. Declaration of Conflict
Reviewers are required to declare possible conflicts before starting to review a work. Editors will review the declaration and can ask reviewers to recuse themselves. Failure to declare conflicts can result into reviewers being blacklisted and excluded from future collaboration with the journal.

6. Review Conduct
The review itself is guided by the following principles:

• Double-Blind
  JIN reviews are double-blind
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• Fair and Unbiased
  JIN reviews are fair and unbiased. If editors detect signs of unfairness and/or bias, the review will be replaced upon consultation with the managing editor and/or editor-in-chief
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• Adherence to COPE Guidelines
  JIN reviews adhere to the principles of COPE’s Ethical Guidelines for Peer-reviewers: https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines/cope-ethical-guidelines-peer-reviewers
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• No AI for reviews
  Reviewers must not use AI tools for reviews
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• Sub Reviewers
  If a reviewer wishes to apply a colleague for a review, they must first seek approval from the editorial office via email. The communication in such cases must include information about the colleagues expertise and possible conflicts of interest.
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7. Criteria for reviews
The following criteria provide guidelines for rating submissions:

• Novelty: Is the research question addressed in the work  original and well-defined? Do the results provide an advancement of the current knowledge?
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• Scope: Does the work fit the journal scope?
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• Significance: Are the results interpreted appropriately? Are they significant? Are all conclusions justified and supported by the results? Are hypotheses carefully identified as such?
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• Quality: Is the article written in an appropriate way? Are the data and analyses presented appropriately? Are the highest standards for presentation of the results used?
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• Scientific Soundness: Is the study correctly designed and technically sound? Are the analyses performed with the highest technical standards? Is the data robust enough to draw conclusions? Are the methods, tools, software, and reagents described with sufficient details to allow another researcher to reproduce the results? Is the raw data available and correct (where applicable)?
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• Interest to the Readers: Are the conclusions interesting for the readership of the journal? Will the paper attract a wide readership, or be of interest only to a limited number of people? (Please see the Aims and Scope of the journal.)
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• Diversity: Does the work contribute to the representation of underrepresented groups?
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• Overall Merit: Is there an overall benefit to publishing this work? Does the work advance the current knowledge? Do the authors address an important long-standing question with smart experiments? Do the authors present a negative result of a valid scientific hypothesis?
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• English Level: Is the English language appropriate and understandable?
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8. Decision
The primary purpose of peer review is providing the Editor with the information needed to reach a fair, evidence-based decision that adheres to the journal’s editorial criteria. Based on the reviews, the Editor will make a decision. The following decision results are possible:

• Accept without any changes (acceptance): the journal will publish the article in its original form. The majority of articles require revision before reaching this stage.
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• Accept with minor revisions (acceptance): the journal will publish the article once the author has made small corrections as suggested by the reviewers and/or editors.
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• Accept after major revisions (conditional acceptance): the journal will publish the article if the authors make changes suggested by the reviewers and/or editors.
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• Revise and resubmit (conditional rejection): this paper cannot be accepted in its current form, but there is enough of an idea that it could be once major revisions are made. The journal will reconsider the article in another round of decision making once the authors have made major changes.
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• Reject the paper (outright rejection): the journal will not publish the article or reconsider it. To be eligible for submission to the journal again, the material needs to be completely re-written.
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9. Final Check
Reviews and editor decision will be checked by the managing editor and/or editor-in-chief before being sent out to authors. 

10. Notification
The corresponding authors will be notified of the results via email by the managing editor and/or editor-in-chief.