Instructions for Peer Reviewers for Notes on the Science of Extreme Situations

General Comments:

1. Notes is a peer reviewed journal with a focus on short articles, normally no more than 3 pages of text with tables and works cited as additional pages as needed.

2. Notes is designed to document observation of current practice in emergency management and to serve as a incubator for concept and theory development in disaster science. The intent of the first is to publish material that will help to paint an accurate picture of how emergency management is actually being done - facilities, procedures, exercises, etc. The intent of the second is to provide a first look at new theory as it is being developed, to encourage conceptual debate in areas that are often take for granted but in which there is no foundation, etc.

3. Each article should clearly state the article's subject and scope. If appropriate the article should indicate areas for additional study that logically follow from the author's work.

4. Articles for Notes should be submitted ready to publish using the standard style used on the site (http://www.richmond.edu/~wgreen/notes.htm). Although most English text articles will appear as pdf files, we are retaining the original online format of left justification of headers and table titles, and the numbering of paragraphs.

5. Articles should be appropriately cited, with supporting sources and with a list of all works cited. The number of citations should be appropriate for the subject matter. Sources used should be appropriate for the material they document.

6. Articles documenting current practice should do so in sufficient depth to allow other researchers to use them as reference material.

7. Articles addressing theory should clearly identify the thrust of the theoretical development and suggest reasonable supporting arguments to justify new work or changes to existing theory. Full development is not required, but the article should provide sufficient information and supporting reasoning to allow readers to agree and further develop the theme or to disagree and mount a cogent rebuttal.

8. As far as you can reasonably determine as a reviewer, that which is stated as fact should be accurate and trustworthy.

9. Articles should be written in a recognizable form of the English language appropriate to the level of the material, be spell checked, and be appropriately punctuated. Articles submitted in other languages must include a translation into English. Other language articles will be separately reviewed for correctness of the text.

The Peer Reviewer Should:

1. Evaluate the article against the standards above and vote whether it should be published, published with revisions, or not published.

2. If the reviewer feels revisions are appropriate, he or she should provide detailed suggestions. "Rewrite this trash completely" is of little assistance; "I though paragraph 3 was weak" is minimally better; but "Your argument that disasters only happen when humans are involved is useful, but you need to support it by suggesting an alternate way of characterizing how we should consider the extermination of animal populations" is far more useful.

3. Suggestions for alterations should be made in the context of the limits for article length. If a revision would increase the value of the article and can be accomplished within the space limits, please make that suggestion. If the article has omitted material that would require another two or three single-spaced pages of material to address, it may be appropriate to suggest that the author indicate the need to address this material in the current article and do so in a follow-up article (or the reviewer write a follow-up article to continue the debate).

4. If, in your judgment, an article should not be published, you should provide substantive reasons why.

5. If an article's research is shoddy and the content is clearly in error, you should recommend either serious revision or rejection. If you do not agree with interpretation or with the underlying thesis of the article, but that thesis or interpretation is well stated, you should seriously consider writing an article in rebuttal. The value of NOTES lies in the title - this journal publishes notes to assist in research and the development of theory, processes that profit from debate.