Instructions for reviewers

As an expert reviewer you contribute to the integrity of research and the exacting standards of SLEEP. We value your expertise in the area and your opinion on the manuscript you review, including its quality, novelty, and importance.

Conflict of Interest:

If you have been asked to review a manuscript and have a potential conflict, then please consult the Editor. If you have a known conflict, then you should always decline the review invitation. A conflict of interest can be Academic/Professional, Financial or Personal. If in doubt always ask the Editor for advice.

Mentored Reviews:

SLEEP accepts mentored reviews where you can jointly author your review with postdoctoral scholars, fellows, or junior colleagues as part of their training. As the mentoring reviewer, you are expected to provide a level of supervision and input such that the submitted review is of equal quality to one written by you alone. If you submit a mentored review, check the appropriate box on the review form and provide the name of the trainee.

Confidentiality:

Please maintain confidentiality both throughout and following the review process. Please do not share information about this manuscript, its content, or your review with any person or entity.

Comments for the Authors:

The reviewer's report (Comments for the Author) is essential to the editorial process. Your comments will have a major influence on the Editors' decision about the manuscript and the author(s) will benefit from your feedback. Your review will be anonymous.

• Be concrete. For example, if you want the authors to cite a specific paper, give details about the paper, preferably the full citation. Do not just say “The authors have overlooked some key literature.”  Similarly, if you think the authors should do a particular analysis or simulation, be specific about its nature. 
• Be clear. Make specific recommendations to the authors. Say what you want them to do and why. If you find a portion of the paper disorganized, say how you think it should be reorganized. At a minimum, be clear about what you think the problems are. 
• Use the third person. Your comments serve two purposes — to help the editor decide what to do about the paper and to help the authors improve it. The first purpose has priority so your review should be addressed to the editor (even though the comments will be shared with the author); refer to the paper and its authors in the third person. Using the second person can make your comments seem harsher and your recommendations more peremptory than necessary. 
• Be brief. Focus on the major strengths and weaknesses of the paper. This will help the editor decide. Do not overload the review with edits. If the paper is desperately in need of proofing or editing for English usage, note that and point to some specific examples. Try and keep your comments to one or two single spaced pages and fewer than 1,000 words.
• Be respectful. Do not be disrespectful to the authors or dismissive of their work. Being clear, specific, and addressing your comments to the editor can help in this regard.

Recommended Structure for Comments for Authors:

To maximize the quality and consistency of reviews, you should use the following format for preparing your review comments.

• Significance: Is the question/problem being addressed an important one? Does the paper include a clear statement of aims and/or hypotheses?
• Approach/methods: What are the strengths and weaknesses of the approach/methods? Are statistical analyses appropriate?
• Results: Are results presented clearly, accurately, and in appropriate detail? 
• Context: Are there appropriate discussion of study aims, methods, and findings in the context of the extant literature? Are strengths and limitations adequately addressed?
• Presentation: Is the paper clearly organized? Are the use of English language, tables, and figures appropriate?

You may add other sections at your discretion.

Confidential Comments to the Editors:

You may provide additional confidential comments to the Editors. These may relate to reasons for your enthusiasm (or lack of enthusiasm), the likelihood for the manuscript to make a substantive contribution if properly revised, aspects of the manuscript for which you lack sufficient expertise to evaluate, and any concerns that you do not wish to communicate to the authors. Do not extensively repeat comments that have been provided to the authors.

Supplemental Materials:

If the submission contains supplemental materials, it is your responsibility to evaluate them at the same level as the contents of the main manuscript. Provide comments to the authors and/or Editors if 1) anything included in supplemental materials is essential to understanding the main article and should be presented there, or 2) if any supplemental materials are unnecessary. If large data sets are provided as part of the supplemental materials, you are not expected to review them in detail.

Review Form:

In addition to written comments to the authors and Editors, you will be asked to respond to several questions on the review form. You will also be asked to rate the manuscript on a 5-point scale (high to low) on Importance, Scientific Rigor, Novelty, Clarity, and Appropriateness for Publication in SLEEP. Elements of this 5-point scale include:

Importance

• 1 – findings not likely to make a meaningful impact in the field or influence future research for clinical practice.
• 3 – interesting findings, moving the field forward in an important way.
• 5 – reports a critical breakthrough or extremely exciting new direction/finding/method.

Scientific Rigor

• 1 – poorly conducted study, critical gaps or confounds in the methods.
• 3 – well conducted study and strong methods appropriate to study aims.
• 5 – state of the art or nearly flawless design and methods completely appropriate to the aims of the study.

Novelty

• 1 – report aims are well studied in the field or findings well known in the field.
• 3 – aims may not be highly novel but do address new population/targets and/or findings represent new advances in the literature.
• 5 – aims are creative and a bit surprising but well-grounded in prior literature or first findings of their kind in sample/population and /or results and discussion represent completely new ideas.

Clarity

• 1 – poor organisations of the manuscript, the manuscript does not flow well, logic not well laid out, confusing to read, English editing may be required.
• 3 – organisation of manuscript is logical, and most sections flow well. Minor issues with English language.
• 5 – well organised, logic and flow make the manuscript easy to read and understand.

Appropriateness

• 1 – manuscript does not relate to sleep or circadian rhythms.
• 3 – strong manuscript likely to be widely read.
• 5 – manuscript is sufficiently strong and would be competitive at a highly ranked general science journal.

Finally, you will be asked to provide one of five recommended decisions for the manuscript:

• Accept. The manuscript is acceptable for publication as is or it requires only minimal revisions/clarifications and does not need to be re-reviewed.
• Minor Revision. The manuscript is likely to be accepted after authors address requests for revision that do not involve major re-working of the data analysis and presentation or of the organization and text of the manuscript.
• Major Revision:  The manuscript may be accepted with major revisions. The manuscript is promising but needs major revisions and, in the judgment of the reviewer, may be unacceptable depending on the responses of the authors to the review. If the reviewer feels that ratings of novelty and importance will not improve even if the manuscript is adequately revised, the decision should be Reject, not Major Revision.
• Reject. The manuscript is not of sufficient quality, novelty, or importance to warrant publication in SLEEP.
• Reject with transfer to SLEEP Advances. The manuscript is not of sufficient quality, novelty, or importance to warrant publication in SLEEP but should be considered for publication in SLEEP Advances.

Reviewer Recognition:

You can benefit from recognition of your review by using the Reviewer Recognition Service which is integrated with the SLEEP editorial management system.