Reviewer Guidelines

Manuscripts submitted to Biologia Serbica are reviewed by at least two experts, who can be volunteer Reviewers, members of the Reviewer Board or Reviewers suggested by the academic editor during the preliminary check.

All Reviewers are asked to evaluate the quality of the manuscript and to provide a recommendation to the Editor on whether a manuscript should be accepted, requires revisions, or should be rejected. Additionally, Reviewers are asked to be mindful of review deadlines and to respect the Author’s time. If the deadline cannot be met, the Editorial Office should be informed when to expect the review.

Confidentiality protects both the Author and the Reviewer

Biologia Serbica operates on a single-blind peer review basis.

The contents of the manuscript, including the Abstract, are to be kept confidential by the Reviewers until the article is published. Do not distribute the manuscript further under any circumstances. Reviewers also must not reveal their identity or their institution to the Authors, either in their comments or in metadata for reports submitted in Microsoft Word or PDF format, at any point.

Writing a review report

To begin with, please consider the following guidelines:

  • Read the whole article, as well as the supplementary material if available, and pay close attention to the figures, tables, data, and methods;
  • Your comments should be detailed enough for the Authors to understand and address the points you are raising;
  • Critically analyze the article as a whole and specific sections;
  • You may recommend citation of your own work, close colleagues and other Authors only when it will clearly improve the manuscript. Excessive citation for the sole purpose of improving article metrics is not allowed;
  • Reviewers must not use AI or AI-assisted tools (such as ChatGPT) to review submissions or to generate peer review reports. Using AI technologies constitutes a breach of peer review confidentiality, as Reviewers are solely responsible for the content of their reports;
  • Please maintain a neutral tone throughout your review and focus on providing constructive criticism that will help the Authors improve their work. Be respectful and professional, as derogatory comments will not be tolerated.

For further guidance on writing a critical review, please refer to the following documents:

  1. COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers. Committee on Publication Ethics. Available online;
  2. Hames, I. Peer Review and Manuscript Management in Scientific Journals: Guidelines for Good Practice. Wiley-Blackwell: Oxford, UK, 2007;
  3. Writing a journal article review. Australian National University: Canberra, Australia, 2010. Available online;
  4. Golash-Boza, T. How to write a peer review for an academic journal: Six steps from start to finish. Available online.

Review reports are to be written in English and should contain the following:

  • Brief summary (one short paragraph) of the paper, outlining the aim, main contributions, strengths and conclusions;
  • General concept comments focused on the scientific content of the manuscript, highlighting weaknesses, addressing the appropriateness of methodology used, topic relevance, etc;
  • Specific comments that refer to line numbers, tables or figures, pointing out inaccuracies within the text or sentences that are unclear. The comments should focus on the scientific content and not on spelling, formatting or English language problems, as not everyone is a native speaker. These issues can be addressed at a later stage.

The following questions can help guide you in writing a review report for research articles:

  • Is the manuscript clear, relevant for the field and presented in a well-structured manner?
  • Are the cited references mostly recent publications (within the last 5 years) and relevant? Does it include an excessive number of self-citations?
  • Is the manuscript scientifically sound and the experimental design appropriate to test the hypothesis?
  • Are the Methods explained in sufficient detail to allow reproducibility of the manuscript’s results?
  • Are the figures/tables/images/schemes appropriate? Do they properly show the data? Are they easy to interpret and understand? Is the data interpreted appropriately and consistently throughout the manuscript? Please include details regarding the statistical analysis or data acquired from specific databases.
  • Are the conclusions consistent with the evidence and arguments presented, as well as supported by listed citations?
  • Please evaluate the ethics and data availability statements to ensure they are adequate.

The following questions can help guide you in writing a review report for research articles:

  • Is the review clear, comprehensive and of relevance to the field? Is a gap in knowledge identified and addressed?
  • Has a similar review been published recently? Is the current review still relevant, of interest to the scientific community and builds upon the previous findings?
  • Are the cited references mostly recent publications (within the last 5 years) and relevant? Are any relevant citations omitted? Does it include an excessive number of self-citations?
  • Are the statements and conclusions supported by the listed citations?
  • Are the figures/tables/images/schemes appropriate? Do they properly show the data? Are they easy to interpret and understand?

The content of your review report will be rated by the in-house Editor team, to ensure that it is scientifically sound and that it will improve the manuscript.

Rating the Manuscript

Manuscripts submitted to Biologia Serbica must be original work and should only report results that have not been previously published, even in part, in other Journals. They should follow generally accepted ethical research standards.

When rating the manuscript, take into consideration the following aspects:

  • Novelty: Is the question original and well-defined? Do the results enrich the current knowledge of the topic?
  • Scope: Does the work fit the journal aim and scope?
  • Significance: Have the results been interpreted appropriately? Are they significant? Are all conclusions justified and supported by the results?
  • Quality: Is the article written in an appropriate way? Are the data and analyses presented appropriately?
  • Scientific Soundness: Is the study correctly designed and technically sound? Are the analyses performed with the highest technical standards? Is the data robust enough to draw conclusions? Are the methods, tools, software, and reagents described with sufficient details to allow another researcher to reproduce the results? Is the raw data available and correct (where applicable)?
  • Interest to the Readers: Are the conclusions interesting for the readership? Will the paper attract a wide readership, or be of interest only to a limited number of people?
  • Overall Merit: Is there an overall benefit to publishing this work? Does the work advance the current knowledge? Do the authors address an important long-standing question with smart experiments?
  • English Level: Is the English language appropriate and understandable?

Please report any instances of scientific misconduct, fraud, plagiarism, or any other form of unethical behavior to the Biologia Serbica Editor team immediately.

Overall Recommendation

Please provide an overall recommendation for the next processing stage of the manuscript as follows:

  • Accept in Present Form: The paper can be accepted in its current form.
  • Accept after Minor Revisions: The paper can in principle be accepted, but only after revision based on the Reviewer’s comments.
  • Reconsider after Major Revisions: The acceptance of the manuscript would depend on the revisions. The Author must address the Reviewer’s comments on a point-by-point basis, or provide a rebuttal if some of the Reviewer’s comments cannot be revised. Depending on the extent of the requested revisions, the Authors will be allowed up to 30 days to resubmit the revised version.
  • Reject: The article has serious flaws, makes no original contribution, and the paper may be rejected with no offer of resubmission to the journal.

Note that your recommendation is visible only to journal Editors, not to the Authors. Decisions on revisions, acceptance, or rejections must always be well justified.