Peer Review Process
The Trento Student Law Review wishes to thank all the reviewers who gifted their time and expertise, and expresses a genuine gratitude for their contributions and support.
1. The Editor-in-Chief, the Vice Editor-in-chief or both conduct a pre-screening in order to ensure that the subject of the submission is consistent with the themes and the scopes of the Review. If a manuscript meets our quality criteria, an Editor from the relevant specialty section is invited to handle the preliminary assessment and content check. Combined, these evaluations determine whether to send the manuscript to an External Reviewer or to recommend it for immediate rejection. If the submission is not considered to be suitable or simply does not meet our current editorial needs - understood on a case-by-case basis and in a comparative perspective - it is rejected: this is notified to the author.
2. Papers considered by the Editor-in-Chief as clearly below the standards of the journal, out of the Review’s scope or not in the required form, are rejected without review. If the submission satisfies our internal criteria of consistency, relevance, originality, substantial and formal coherence, a binding preliminary offer to publish will be extended to the author.
3. If the author accepts the preliminary offer, the article will be sent to one of our external reviewers. External reviewers are members of the national and international academic community, who have been recognized as experts in their field of research. They are selected on the basis of their credit and of their experience by the Editor-in-Chief and/or the Vice Editor-in-Chief in collaboration with the Managing Editors. Authors may be invited to recommend or ask for the exclusion of specific individuals from the peer review process. The journal does not guarantee to use these suggestions. All reviewers must be independent from the submission and will be asked to declare all competing interests.
The Trento Student Law Review operates a double-blind peer review process, meaning that the Reviewer remains anonymous for the author and the author’s name is removed from the manuscript under review. The reviewer who reviewed the submission suggests weather to recommend the piece for rejection, minor or major revisions, or acceptance.
Editors’ and reviewers’ screening criteria:
- Academic relevance
- Readability (is the article well written and easy to follow?)
- Reasoning (is the article well-structured?)
- Quality of the English
- Has the problem been clearly formulated?
- Does the formulation of the problem cover the article's contents?
- Have sources been sufficiently listed?
- Does the article not exceed the maximum length (too much)?
- Does the article fit in the editorial aims and scope of the journal?
5. The review period is expected to take between three and four weeks, although we try to make this as quick as possible. Reviewers are asked to provide formative feedback, even if an article is not deemed suitable for publication in the journal.
6. Based on the recommendations of the reviewer, the Editor-in-Chief and the Vice Editor-in-Chief then decide whether the article should be finally and definitely accepted as it is, revised or rejected. In case of revisions, a final decision on publication will be made after resubmission.
7. The manuscripts are accepted for publication by the Editor in Chief.
