Peer-review process

JOINTS operates a single-blind review process. All contributions will be initially evaluated by the Editor-in-Chief for suitability for the journal. Contributions deemed as suitable are subsequently sent to a minimum of two independent expert reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the manuscript. The journal usually recruits both internal and external reviewers for each article undergoing peer review. The Editor is responsible for the final decision regarding rejection or acceptance of articles. Editors are not responsible for decisions regarding rejection or acceptance of papers that they have written themselves or have been written by colleagues or family members or which relate to services or products in which the Editor has an interest. Such submissions will be subject to all of the journal’s usual procedures, with peer review usually handled by external reviewers and independently of the relevant Editors and their research groups.

As 2 up to 4 expert peer reviewers are recruited by the Editor, they are asked to complete and submit their review report via Publishing Manager within 21 days. By using Publishing Manager, reviewers can also save their progress and decide to submit the final review report at a later stage. For more details on the peer review process, visit the page “Policies, Licensing and COI”.

Revised submission

Authors must resubmit the revised version of their article as a unique Word document (.doc, .docx). Authors must revise their manuscript using a word processing program and mark the changes within the document by using red text or highlighting the revised text in yellow. Authors must not use the “Track Changes” option in Microsoft Office documents to highlight the changes made in the revised version of their manuscript. Authors are also required to add continuous line numbering throughout the document to facilitate the review process.

The revised version of the article must always be accompanied by a Word document containing the point-by-point response to reviewers’ comments.

Authors must resubmit the revised version of their article within 2 months after the receipt of the complete report from our reviewers. Articles that are not resubmitted within 2 months after the receipt of the complete reviewer reports will be deemed as rejected. However, authors can contact the Editorial Office at submission.joints@verduci.it if they need to request a deadline extension for the resubmission of the revised manuscript.

After acceptance

Galley Proofs

To ensure a fast publication process of the articles accepted for publication, we kindly ask authors to provide us with their proof corrections within three days. The Corresponding Author will receive an e-mail containing the galley proofs. The galley proofs can be downloaded as a PDF file. Authors can annotate and upload their edits on the PDF version or provide them in a separate word document. All instructions for proofing will be given in the e-mail that we send to the authors. We discourage excessive changes made to the proofs by the authors (usually exceeding 300 characters).

Authors must check carefully the typesetting, editing, correctness and completeness of the text (including author names, affiliations and corresponding author information), figures and tables. At this stage, significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered with permission from the Editor. All corrections must be returned to us at submission.joints@verduci.it in a unique communication. Authors must check the galley proofs carefully before replying, as the inclusion of any subsequent corrections will not be allowed. Proofreading is solely authors’ responsibility. The Editorial Office will do everything possible to get accepted articles published quickly and accurately.

Publishing Schedule

Rather than publishing conventional complete online issues at fixed intervals, starting from March 2023, JOINTS has moved to a continuous publication model, with articles being published on an ongoing basis.

Electronic offprints 

Electronic offprints are sent, upon request, to the email address of the Corresponding Author of the manuscript. Therefore, the Corresponding Author must ensure that his/her name, postal address and email address are clearly and correctly indicated on the title page of the manuscript.

Supplements

For further information on supplements, please contact the editorial office at submission.joints@verduci.it.

Author inquiries

Author inquiries should be sent to submission.joints@verduci.it.

Preservation and Archiving

JOINTS is committed to ensuring the permanent availability, accessibility and preservation of scholarly research by upgrading digital file formats to comply with new technology standards. All our files and manuscripts are archived and preserved in CLOCKSS.