Peer Review Proccess

The editor-in-chief will assign the manuscript to the managing editor or editors for further handling. The managing editor will request at least two scientists to review the research article manuscript. All manuscripts are subject to double-blind peer review; the identities of both reviewers and authors are concealed from each other throughout the review process to meet standards of academic excellence. All papers are fully peer-reviewed. We only publish articles that have been reviewed and approved by highly qualified researchers with expertise in the appropriate field (at least two reviewers per article). Leadership in Muslim Societies (LMS) maintains the standards of double-blind peer review while increasing the efficiency of the process.

LMS applies a two-stage process. After the technical check, the submission will first be reviewed by the editorial team for suitability for publication in the journal. If suitable, it will then be assigned to one of the editors to handle the review and decision process.

If the manuscript matches the scope and satisfies the criteria of LMS, your paper will be assigned to an editor. The editor will identify and contact two reviewers who are acknowledged experts in the field. Since peer review is a voluntary service, it can take some time. The editor will regularly remind reviewers if they do not reply in a timely manner. During this stage, the status will appear as "Under Review".

Once the editor has received the minimum number of expert reviews, the status will change to "Required Reviews Complete".

It is also possible that the editor on duty may decide that your manuscript does not meet the journal criteria or scope and that it should not be considered further. In this case, the editor will immediately notify the author(s) that the manuscript has been rejected and may recommend a more suitable journal.

Editors also have the option of seeking additional reviews when needed. The authors will be advised when the editors decide that further review is required. In short, the steps are:

  1. Manuscript submission (by author).
  2. Manuscript check and selection (by managing editor and editors).
  3. Editors have a right to accept, reject, or review directly. Before further processing steps, a plagiarism check is applied to each manuscript.
  4. Manuscript reviewing process (by reviewers).
  5. Notification of manuscript acceptance, revision, or rejection (by editor to author based on reviewer's comments).
  6. Paper revision (by author).
  7. Revision submission based on reviewer suggestion (by author) with a similar flow to point number 1.
  8. If the reviewer seems to be satisfied with the revision, notification for acceptance (by the editor).
  9. Galley proof and publishing process.

The steps from points 1 to 5 are considered as 1 round of the peer-reviewing process. The editor or the editorial board considers the feedback from the peer reviewers before finally arriving at a decision. The following are the most common decisions:

  1. Accepted as it is. The journal will publish the paper in its original form.
  2. Accepted by minor revisions, the journal will publish the paper and ask the author to make small corrections (let the authors revise within the stipulated time).
  3. Accepted by major revisions, the journal will publish the paper provided the authors make the changes suggested by the reviewers and/or editors (let authors revise within the stipulated time).
  4. Resubmit (conditional rejection), the journal is willing to reconsider the paper in another round of decision-making after the authors make major changes.
  5. Rejected (outright rejection), the journal will not publish the paper or reconsider it even if the authors make major revisions.