Reviewing for EM

Reviewers are a critical resource of every academic journal. To meet the journal's goal and quality standards as a well-ranked journal, reviewers have a high responsibility.

Profile of Reviewer Task

Electronic Markets always seeks colleagues from the field, who are motivated to contribute to the journal as a reviewer.In the following you will find some more details regarding the expectations to reviewers:

  • To qualify as a reviewer for EM, you should at least be an advanced PhD student with profound knowledge in a specific area concerning either the journal’s scope or methodological approaches.
  • Researchers may approach the Editorial Office to be added to EM's reviewer database. As author of an accepted paper, EM expects that you are also open to contribute a review to other papers (see submission).
  • Repeated reviewers may be invited to join EM's editorial board. In this role, it is expected to contribute an average of three reviews per year. Typically, the review should be completed four weeks after the invitation.
  • All reviewing activities at EM may be recorded in the individual account at Publons, which lists the review assignments and increases your recognition as a reviewer.

As a reviewer you can support the authors to develop their paper and to prepare it for a broader audience. Here can you find detailed guidelines on the review process. We hope that the following guiding principles will be of help to you during the review process.

Guiding Principles

First of all, reviews should help to secure that only high quality research is published in the journal and they should help authors to further develop their work. They should always be written in a constructive attitude and reviewers are reminded that they should only communicate what they would value as authors themselves. Here are some details on how to structure a valuable review:

  • At the beginning of your review, please summarize the content of the paper. This can be helpful for the editor and also supports the authors in determining the comprehensibility of their reasoning. In the first section you can also comment on your expertise in relation to the paper under review so that the authors and editors will be better able to weigh and interpret your comments.
  • Your review should include an overall reaction to the submission but also point out specific critical aspects (e.g. consideration of prior research, sound methodology, convincing results). This is especially helpful if the comments are made with reference to page and line numbers. When referring to necessary revisions, the suggestions for improvement should be as specific as possible. The review should comprise at least 1-2 pages and it might also be useful to include further references.
  • Please make sure to critically reflect on the paper's contribution to the existing knowledge in theory as well as in practice. This includes to make sure that the results offered are innovative, reliable and validated. Also it includes accepting the author’s research framework and commenting on the problematic consequences that arise from the use of a certain framework instead of criticizing the initial assumptions themselves.
  • Please elaborate on the paper’s strengths and shortcomings in greater detail. This section should at lease comprise a half page and should be provided even if a paper has to be rejected. In this case, suggestions about future research directions or advice on future methodology can be extremely helpful. At the end of the review, the paper’s contribution to the scientific or practical field should be commented on. 

For further information, please also see the Editorial "Electronic Markets on reviewing". We are thankful for our reviewers' excellent work (see also the Outstanding Reviewers Award) in the past and hope to be able to continue welcoming many passionate reviewers on our editorial board in the future.