Submission and peer-review

To submit an article:

• Please ensure that you have prepared your manuscript in line with the SAJBL requirements.
• All submissions should be submitted via the editorial system.
• The following are required for your submission to be complete:
  • Anonymous manuscript (unless otherwise stated)
  • Manuscript
  • Any supplementary files: figures, datasets, patient consent form, permissions for published images, etc.
  • Once the submission has been successfully processed on the system, it will undergo a technical check by the Editorial Office before it will be assigned to an editor who will handle the review process. If the author guidelines have not been appropriately followed, the manuscript may be sent back to the author for correcting.

 

Peer Review Process 

All manuscripts are reviewed initially by the Editor-in-Chief and only those that meet the scientific and editorial standards of the journal, and fit within the aims and scope of the journal, will be sent for external peer review. Each manuscript is reviewed by two reviewers selected on the basis of their expertise in the field. A double blind review process is followed at SAJBL.

Authors are expected to receive feedback from reviewers and an editorial decision within approximately 6 weeks of submission. The time period of the entire review process may vary however depending upon the quality of the manuscript submitted, reviewers’ responses and the time taken by the authors to submit the revised manuscript.

Manuscripts from review may be accepted, rejected or returned to the author for revision or resubmission for review. Authors will be directed to submit revised manuscripts within two months of receiving the editor’s decision, and are requested to submit a point by point response to the reviewers’ comments. Manuscripts which authors are requested to revise and resubmit will be sent for a second round of peer review, often to the original set of reviewers. All final decisions on a manuscript are at the Editor's discretion

 

Production process

1. An accepted manuscript is passed to a Managing Editor to assign to a copyeditor (CE).
2. The CE copyedits in Word, working on house style, format, spelling/grammar/punctuation, sense and consistency, and preparation for typesetting.
3. If the CE has an author queries, he/she will contact the corresponding author and send them the copyedited Word doc, asking them to solve the queries by means of track changes or comment boxes.
4. The authors are typically asked to respond within 1-3 days. Any comments/changes must be clearly indicated e.g. by means of track changes. Do not work in the original manuscript - work in the copyedited file sent to you and make your changes clear.
5. The CE will finalise the article and then it will be typeset.
6. Once typeset, the CE will send a PDF of the file to the authors to complete their final check, while simultaneously sending to the 2nd-eye proofreader.
7. The authors are typically asked to complete their final check and sign-off within 1-2 days. No major additional changes can be accommodated at this point.
8. The CE implements the authors’ and proofreader’s mark-ups, finalises the file, and prepares it for the upcoming issue.

Changing contact details or authorship

Please notify the Editorial Department of any contact detail changes, including email, to facilitate communication.