Information for Reviewers

Guidelines for referees 

The quality of the articles published in Siriraj Medical Journal depends on the care the reviewers take in establishing that an article is of scientific repute. Two referees are asked to comment on each original article, and occasionally a third referee is asked for a further opinion. As referees’ comments are confidential and, equally, as the article to be referred is confidential, it should not be discussed with colleagues or with the authors.

The editors ask the referee to :

1. Write detailed comments on the paper which will be transmitted to the author anonymously. The advice is more helpful than generalities.

2. Write an opinion on the article for the editors ; this will not be transmitted to the author. The editors wish to know if you think the article should be published, whether modification would enable the article to reach the required standard, the importance and thus priority of the article, and its originality. On the basis of both referees’ reports the editor will decide whether the paper is suitable for publication. You will be sent the other referee’s report with their final decision.

The following checklist is intended to help you compile your referee report :

(a) Scientific reliability – of paramount importance.

(b) Originality – highly desirable although we accept that an important function of the Journal is to keep our readership up to date with broad advances and that review articles are extremely helpful. We go to great pains to avoid multiple publication of the same material in different journals.

(c) Importance - to the advance of medical science.

(d) Presentation – the Introduction should be succinct, the Patients and Methods section should be a detailed description of the study, the Results section should be concise with appropriate statistical analysis, the Discussion should be relevant and come to reasonable conclusions on the basis of data presented, and the Abstract (Thai and English) should be concise and contain hard data. The quality of English is not necessarily a major obstacle if the paper contains an important message. Please comment on whether the references are up to date and relevant ; you might like to check one or two, selected at random.

(e) Illustrations – we ask our referees to comment critically on the quality and need for illustrations and tables.

(f) Statistics – please comment critically on the need for, or inappropriate use of, statistical methods in data analysis.

(g) Ethical considerations – Siriraj Medical Journal continues to distance itself from papers based on inappropriate animal experiments or clinical studies which are deemed unethical.

Please return the article within 2 weeks of receiving the manuscript. If you are unable to review the article within this period of time, it is helpful to return the article immediately to the Editorial Office. If you are more committed than usual, or going away for a long period or do not wish to review temporarily, it is helpful to let the Editorial Office know so that further articles are not sent until you are able to referee articles again. Please telephone the Editorial Secretary, Amornrat, on (02)419-7703, 412-8514.

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