All submissions to Pangaea undergo rigorous evaluation by the editorial staff. To keep the process as efficient as possible for student authors and peer-reviewers alike, papers failing to meet our academic and ethical eligibility criteria will be rejected at the outset without extensive review.
Papers judged to be original and relevant to our readership undergo formal review. The review process is carried out by editorial staff as well as external reviewers, typically with one or two reviewers per paper. The process is anonymous to protect the identities of the peer-reviewers. Nonetheless, peer-reviewers are encouraged to leave constructive comments for the student authors, as feedback can be of great benefit in their future endeavors.
The ultimate decision for each paper is made by the editors, after carefully weighing the reviewer’s suggestions. Possibilities include:
• “Publish in its present form” (if minor copy-editing or stylistic revisions are all that are needed, this is the appropriate response);
• “Publish with minimal revisions” (this response is apt for a piece that may need just a few more textual additions, sources, or “buttressing” of an argument);
• “Publish with substantial revisions” (a response that is proper when a piece needs substantial work, such as expansion of text, argument, and/or conclusions, or has major source or stylistic problems); or,
• “Do not publish” (this response is reserved for pieces that fail to meet the levels of scholarship required of the journal.)
Pangaea’s staff have a strong commitment to upholding editorial conventions, and take seriously both technical and content-based criticisms. Moreover, because the expertise of our peer-reviewers is integral to the continued quality of our journal, our reviewer-selection is based on a number of aspects, including and not related to: knowledge, competence, trusted recommendations and our own experiences with the reviewer’s work.
Typically, peer-reviewers are selected through an invitation-based process. However, if you are interested in becoming a reviewer for Pangaea, please contact our journal editors.