Peer review for Routes is undertaken as a ‘double blind review’ as both the author(s) and reviewers remain anonymous. Each submission will be independently considered by two reviewers as well as the nominated editor.

The purpose of peer review

Peer review serves two key functions:

• Acts as a filter: ensures research is properly verified before it is published
• Improves the quality of the research: rigorous review by other experts helps to hone key points and to correct inadvertent errors

Article acceptance criteria

If you are a student author preparing your work for submission, please use this document to help you. This is the framework that will be used by peer reviewers to assess your submission.

Steps of the review process

Information about the submission and peer-review process

1. Student submits article to Routes via the submission form
2. Submissions are sent to an Editor who will allocate the submission to two reviewers (usually a teacher and an academic)
3. Reviewers will make the decision to either 1) accept, 2) accept with corrections (corrections are minor), 3) request resubmission (corrections are likely to be more substantial) or 4) reject
4. Authors will receive the outcome of the peer review process from the Managing Editor
5. If an article is 2) accepted with corrections the submission should be re-submitted to the Managing Editor within two months.
6. If there outcome of the review process is 3) request resubmission– the student has two months to re-submit, but we acknowledge that this may take longer. It should be resubmitted via the submission form.
7. it is very rare for an article to be accepted outright with no corrections. Similarly, it is rare for a submission to be rejected outright. In both of these outcomes, the Managing Editor will communicate this to the authors.
8. Once an author has made corrections- either minor edits or resubmitted their work- it is assessed by the Editor-in-Chief who will correspond with authors directly to confirm expected dates of publication and to complete any further edits, should these be required.