Peer Review Policy

Editorial Board Assessments
The Editorial Board of the Lafia Journal of Scientific and Industrial Research (LJSIR) consists of members of the Faculty of Physical Sciences and Faculty of Biological Sciences of the Federal University of Lafia, who are experts in their various fields.

Editor-in-Chief and Deputy Editor-in-Chief Assessment
The Editor-in-Chief (EiC) and the Deputy EiC, upon submission, will examine your manuscript to see if it falls within the scope of the journal and then assign it to a Section Editor in one of the LJSIR's sections (Physical or Life Section).

Section Editor Assessment
The Section Editor will evaluate whether the manuscript is scientifically sound and then screen it for plagiarism. If the Turnitin similarity index falls below 25%, the Section Editor will process the manuscript further by assigning it to Reviewers; the corresponding author will receive a notification about this.

Peer Review
All submissions are reviewed at least by two experts. Even though a Section Editor usually needs two independent reviews, a single negative review is sufficient to decide if the Section Editor agrees with the report. The identities of reviewers remain anonymous and will not be disclosed unless they give permission. All submissions will be subject to a blind peer review (Anonymous Reviewer). The Section Editor evaluates the reviews' opinions and makes the final decision. Based on the recommendations,

• the manuscript may be accepted.
• the manuscript may be rejected; or
• the reviewers' reports may be sent to the authors for revision.
• If the article is found to contain too many errors for the reviewers to comment fully on its content, the authors will be required to make major revisions and then resubmit the paper for review.

Submission of Revised Manuscripts
Authors are requested to include their responses to the reviewers' remarks as an attachment to their revised manuscript for subsequent transmission to the reviewers after revising their manuscript in response to their feedback.  The original evaluators may be contacted to determine whether the revisions have been satisfactorily executed after receiving the revised version.  The article may be accepted or re-reviewed in accordance with the remarks of the reviewers.

Decision on Manuscript
In the event that a manuscript is not within the scope of LJSIR, does not meet the journal's criteria for novelty and relevance, has a Turnitin similarities index that exceeds 25%, or has technical imperfections that raise questions about the reliability of the results, editors may decline to accept it.  Occasionally, a manuscript that has already been reviewed may still be rejected as a result of technical issues discovered during the peer-review process, a lack of originality or relevance, or both.  An additional reason for an article's rejection for publication is when a significant number of potential reviewers decline the invitation to review. This could suggest that the paper's objective and target audience do not align with LJSIR's.  In these instances, the editors will return the paper to the authors in order to facilitate its submission to a more suitable publication outlet.