Review Process

At the heart of Sociological Insight is the peer-review process. We believe that critical feedback from impartial and anonymous reviewers is essential to the scholarly development of undergraduates. Insight has instituted a systematic mechanism that provides constructive feedback to undergraduates submitting their papers.

Each paper will go through three stages before being published. Below is a summary of the manuscript review process:

• Manuscripts will be given a preliminary reading by the Editor-in-Chief and one or more Managing or Deputy Editors. Manuscripts which clearly disregard submission guidelines or do not meet Sociological Insight's quality standards will be desk-rejected. Manuscripts which meet the basic requirements will be sent for review
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• Reviewers will have no way of identifying the author of a manuscript's name or institutional affiliation (submitters will also not know who is reviewing their papers). Reviewers will assign scores to manuscripts based on a standardized list of vetting criteria.
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• Manuscripts will be critically reviewed by at least two Consulting Editors (faculty or graduate students) and one undergraduate reviewer. Undergraduate reviewers will have had workshop/course training in how to critically review an academic article. Consulting Editors will be specialized in the manuscript's research area. They will assess the research's methodological soundness and provide remarks on areas of potential improvement.
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• Based on these reviews, the Editor-in-Chief and his/her editorial team will deliberate over which articles will be accepted for publication, rejected, or sent for "revise and resubmit". They will make their decision based on the objective evaluations of reviewers and consultations.
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• If an article enters the "revise and resubmit" process, a list of Necessary Revisions will be created which the author must address in order for his/her paper to be considered for publication. If an article is given a "Conditional Acceptance", a list of minor editorial revisions that need to be addressed will be sent to the author.

Editors will recuse themselves from submitting manuscripts to Sociological Insight.