Review Process

After submission of any manuscript be it case report, review paper, meta-analysis, case series, case report or brief communication to the international journal of medical case reports, the editor in chief will first check whether the submission falls within the stated scope of the journal. If the paper is found to be conforming to the scope of the journal then the assessment of the paper will start with checking the paper for plagiarism. If the paper is found to be plagiarised as per plagiarism policy then the paper will be summarily rejected and the concerned authors will be informed about rejection.  If the paper conforms to the plagiarism policy of JMCR then a further process will ensue. The review process essentially consists of Editorial Review followed by Double-blind peer review. 

Editorial Review

The paper will be assigned to one of the editorial board members so it can be judged for the basic requirements of publication. If it passes editorial review then the editor in chief will assign the paper to 2 peer reviewers based on the subject matter of the paper. 

Double-Blind Peer Review

Both of the peer reviewers will be outside the editorial board of JMCR. It will be ensured that proper blinding of paper is done before the paper is sent for peer review. The editor will see to it that all the information contained within the article which points towards the identification of authors or their affiliated institute as well as their geographical location is removed so that a genuine double-blind peer review can be done. It will be ensured by all means that neither reviewers will know authors nor authors will know the reviewers thereby obliterating the chances of any kind of bias in arriving at a decision.

The peer reviewers will be given a specified time (usually 2 weeks but the duration can be increased on the request of the reviewer) to analyze whether the paper is accepted for publication in JMCR. If found acceptable, the letter of acceptance will be issued to the author. 

If the reviewers ask for any clarification or changes then the same will be communicated to the author and a specific time will be given to the authors so that a revised version of the paper can be re-submitted for consideration. The revised version will then be sent to the peer reviewers once again for their consideration and if they are satisfied that the relevant changes and corrections are done then the paper will be accepted for publication and the corresponding author will be notified. 

The whole process should not take more than 6 weeks from submission to acceptance or rejection of the paper. Publication certificates will be provided to the authors of papers which has been accepted for publication. The certificate will have all the relevant information including the tentative date and issue number of JMCR.