Journal of Precision Agriculture · Reviewer Guidelines
Guidelines for Reviewers
What a useful review looks like for interdisciplinary precision-agriculture work, and what the journal asks of the people who write one.
Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request.
Before you accept
Accept a review only where you can cover the claims being made and can return a considered report. If part of the manuscript falls outside your expertise, say which part when you accept: the editor can then place a second reviewer accurately.
Decline where you hold a financial, personal, academic or institutional interest in the work or its authors, and say why so the editor can reassign it.
Confidentiality
A manuscript sent for review is confidential. Do not share it, discuss it outside the review, cite it, or use its content before publication. If you want a colleague to contribute to the review, ask the editor first and name them.
For double-blind manuscripts, reviewers must not attempt to identify the authors.
Using AI tools
Reviewers must obtain journal permission before using AI to assist with a review. Any permitted use must be disclosed, and confidential manuscript content must not be uploaded where confidentiality cannot be assured.
What to assess
Judge the manuscript on its own design. A modeling study, a sensing method, a synthesis, a policy analysis and a field experiment each owe a different account of themselves, and an experimental standard applied to all of them is the wrong instrument.
- Relevance: does the work contribute to precision agriculture, and is that contribution stated clearly?
- Design and methods: is the approach capable of answering the question asked, and is it reported well enough to be repeated?
- Analysis: are the analytical choices appropriate, and is uncertainty reported honestly?
- Interpretation: do the conclusions follow from the results, at the strength they are stated, and are limits acknowledged?
- Reporting: are data, code and materials described so the work can be checked, and are ethics approvals and registrations reported where they apply?
Writing the report
Be specific. Point to the section, the figure or the statement you are addressing, say what the problem is, and where you can, say what would resolve it. A report that an author can act on is worth more than a verdict.
Separate what is wrong from what you would have done differently, and separate both from the decision. The recommendation is yours to make; the decision belongs to the editor, who weighs your report alongside others.
After you submit the review
After submitting the review, reviewers should securely delete downloaded manuscript files and must not retain or use unpublished material.
Related pages
The journal’s policy set governs review, and the editor guidance sets out how reports are weighed.
Journal of Precision Agriculture · ISSN 2998-1506 · Published by Open Access Pub · CC BY 4.0