Review Process

All submissions to JoULAB are subject to a double-blind, peer-review process. This means that the reviewers for any manuscript and that manuscript's author are unable to access identifying information about each other. Each paper is first anonymously assessed by the Editorial Committee to ensure its scope meets the reviewing ability of the Journal before it is then passed on to two reviewers who provide in-depth comments through reviewing rounds.

Upon receipt of a manuscript, the first thing that occurs is Abstract Approval. This is where the abstract of a paper is anonymously assessed by either the Editor or the Head of the Board of Reviewers, according to several criteria concerning relevance to linguistics and appropriateness for academic publication. It will normally take a week for a submission to progress from this stage.

Once a paper's abstract is approved by the Editorial Committee, it is then assigned to two PhD students/candidates from the Board of Reviewers, and the peer-review component of the Journal's review process begins. Here, reviewers will assess articles according to five internal criteria and then assign one of four designations. These are: 

How many rounds of reviewing a paper receives depends upon the designation the reviewers award it at each round, with the first round designation being most decisive. Ordinarily, no paper will pass through reviewing rounds without having been reviewed by each reviewer twice, in between which authors may be requested to make corrections, and can often take several months to complete.
Once both reviewers are satisfied with the quality of a paper, they offer their recommendation for publication to the Editorial Committee.

Upon receipt of two recommendations for publication from both reviewers for a particular paper, the Editorial Committee (the Editor and the Head of the Board of Reviewers) meet to discuss the article in question. They read the paper, and comments left by reviewers, in detail, and if they find no further issues to raise then they award a manuscript its Final Acceptance. At this point, this message is communicated with the corresponding author(s), and their paper will appear in the next issue of the Journal.