Guidelines for Reviewers
“We are sincerely grateful to scholars who give their time to peer-review articles submitted to Journal of Epigenetics. Rigorous peer-review is the cornerstone of high-quality academic publishing.”
— The JEP editorial team.

Invitation to Review
Manuscripts submitted to JEP are reviewed by at least two experts. Reviewers are asked to evaluate the quality of the manuscript and to provide a recommendation to the external editor on whether a manuscript can be accepted, requires revisions or should be rejected.

We ask invited reviewers to:
•accept or decline any invitations quickly, based on the manuscript title and abstract;
•suggest alternative reviewers if an invitation must be declined;
•request an extension in case more time is required to compose a report.
As part of the assessment, reviewers will be asked: •to rate the originality, significance, quality of the presentation, scientific soundness, interest to the readers, overall merit and English level of the manuscript;
•to provide an overall recommendation for the publication of the manuscript;
•to provide a detailed, constructive review report

Potential Conflicts of Interests
We ask reviewers to inform the journal editor if they hold a conflict of interests that may prejudice the review report, either in a positive or negative way. The editorial office will check as far as possible before the invitation; however, we appreciate the cooperation of reviewers in this matter. Reviewers who are invited to assess a manuscript they previously reviewed for another journal should not consider this as a conflict of interest in itself. In this case, reviewers should feel free to let us know if the manuscript has been improved or not compared to the previous version.

Confidentiality and Anonymity
Reviewers should keep the content of the manuscript, including the abstract, confidential. Reviewers must inform the Editorial Office if they would like a student or colleague to complete the review on their behalf.
JEP operate double blind peer review. Reviewers should be careful not to reveal their identity to the authors, either in their comments or in metadata for reports submitted in Microsoft Word or PDF format.

Timely Review Reports
JEP aims to provide an efficient and high-quality publishing service to authors and to the scientific community. We ask reviewers to assist by providing review reports in a timely manner. Please contact the editorial office if you require an extension to the review deadline.

Peer-Review and Editorial Procedure
All manuscripts sent for publication in our journals are strictly and thoroughly peer-reviewed by experts. The Managing Editor of the journal will perform an initial check of the manuscript’s suitability upon receipt. The Editorial Office will then organize the peer-review process performed by independent experts and collect at least two review reports per manuscript. We ask our authors for adequate revisions (with the second round of peer-review if necessary) before a final decision is made. The final decision is made by the academic editor (usually the Editor-in-Chief of a journal or the Guest Editor of a Special Issue). Accepted articles are copy-edited and English-edited.
Note that your recommendation is visible only to journal editors, not to the authors.

Overall Recommendation
Please provide an overall recommendation for the publication of the manuscript as follows:
•Accept in Present Form: The paper is accepted without any further changes.
•Accept after Minor Revisions: The paper is in principle accepted after revision based on the reviewer’s comments. Authors are given 10 days for minor revisions.
•Reconsider after Major Revisions: The acceptance of the manuscript would depend on the revisions. The author needs to provide a point by point response or provide a rebuttal if some of the reviewer’s comments cannot be revised. Usually, only one round of major revisions are allowed. Authors will be asked to resubmit the revised paper within 10 days and the revised version will be returned to the reviewer for further comments.
•Reject: The article has serious flaws, makes no original contribution, and the paper is rejected with no offer of resubmission to the journal.
Note that your recommendation is visible only to journal editors, not to the authors.

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List of referees