PREPARATION OF ARTICLES
Articles are accepted by e-mail: apgospravo.tgu@mail.ru
181B Sovetskaya St., office 214, Derzhavin Tambov State University, Institute of Law and National Security, Tambov, 392000, Russian Federation.
As part of the manuscript submission process, the authors must agree to all of the following points. The manuscript may be returned to the authors who do not comply with these rules.
PEER-REVIEW POLICY
discussed and approved at the Editorial Board meeting
of the journal “Current Issues of the State and Law”,
on Feb. 25, 2025
The Editorial Board of the “Current Issues of the State and Law” journal adheres to COPE guidelines when dealing with manuscripts, reviewers and organizing the review process.
TYPE OF PEER-REVIEW
All manuscripts submitted to the Editorial Board of “Current Issues of the State and Law” undergo a mandatory double-blind review. This means that neither the author nor the reviewer knows each other's names and places of work, and all correspondence is conducted through the editor of “Current Issues of the State and Law”. Each manuscript is sent to at least two reviewers.
PEER-REVIEW PERIOD
The review process in the journal “Current Issues of the State and Law” takes on average from 1 to 4 months. In this period the Editorial Office of the journal includes the time for initial consideration of the manuscript, selection of reviewers, time for preparation of the review, time for revision of the article by the author and repeated review, involvement of additional experts.
PEER-REVIEW PROCESS
The decision to select a reviewer for the journal “Current Issues of the State and Law” is made by the Editor-in-Chief.
Each article is sent to at least two reviewers. If different opinions about the manuscript are received, a third expert can be involved.
The Editor of the journal “Current Issues of the State and Law” can give the author one of the following decisions regarding the manuscript:
Accept for publication. In this case, the manuscript will be included in one of the regular issues of the journal and will be submitted to the editor for further work. The author will be notified of the publication deadline.
Accept for publication after correction of flaws noted by the reviewer. In this case, the author will be asked to make changes to the manuscript within a week. If the flaws are eliminated or if there is a justified refusal to make changes, the manuscript will be accepted for publication.
Accept for publication after correction of flaws noted by the reviewer and after repeated review. In this case, the author will be asked to make the changes within two weeks. The manuscript will be sent for a second review. Within 30 days the author will receive a final decision on the fate of the manuscript.
Reject. In this case, a motivated refusal to publish the manuscript will be sent to the author. Denial of publication does not prohibit authors to send manuscripts to the journal “Current Issues of the State and Law” in the future, but if publication is denied due to gross violations on the part of the author, the Editor-in-Chief may decide to blacklist the author. In this case, other articles by this author will not be considered.
The Editorial Board of the journal “Current Issues of the State and Law” considers three rounds of reviewing, which means that after the first decision to revise the article, the author has two attempts to make changes based on the reviewer’s recommendation or motivate a refusal. If after the third round of review the reviewer sends notes again, the Editor-in-Chief will suggest the author to consider the possibility of publication in another journal or resubmit the article for review with the changes made in six months.
If the author does not plan to finalize the article, they should notify the journal’s editorial office. Work on the article will be terminated.
If the author has a conflict of interest with an expert who could potentially become a reviewer of the manuscript, they should notify the Editor-in-Chief of the journal. The Editorial Board of the journal “Current Issues of the State and Law” will find another reviewer if necessary.
In the process of reviewing the manuscript, a conflict may arise between the author and the reviewer. In this case, the Editor-in-Chief of the journal “Current Issues of the State and Law” has the right to appoint a new reviewer for the manuscript.
The journal “Current Issues of the State and Law” may publish articles by the Editor-in-Chief, their Deputy, and members of the Editorial Board, but there should be no abuse of power. Manuscripts of the journal employees are sent for double-blind review only to external experts. Only external experts are involved to resolve contradictions and conflict situations. In case of a conflict regarding the fate of the Editor-in-Chief’s manuscript, the final decision on the possibility of publishing the article is made by the members of the Editorial Board.
When publishing articles by members of the Editorial Board, Editor-in-Chief and their Deputy, information about the authors’ affiliation with the journal is indicated in the “Conflict of Interest” section.
The journal “Current Issues of the State and Law” does not exempt scientists from peer-review regardless of their status.
Copies of reviews are kept in the editorial office of the journal “Current Issues of the State and Law” for at least 5 years.
The Editorial Board undertakes to send copies of reviews to the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation and to the expert councils of the Higher Attestation Commission upon receiving a corresponding request.
REVIEWERS PANEL
All incoming manuscripts are reviewed by external experts who have experience in the relevant subject area and publications on the topic of the manuscript within the last 3 years.
If the topic of the article is very narrow and/or the author declares a potential conflict of interest when reviewed by external experts, members of the editorial board may be involved in the review.
Principles of selecting reviewers and steps taken by the journal Editorial Board to ensure high quality of expertise
The Editorial Board of the journal “Current Issues of the State and Law” conducts regular work on attracting recognized experts in the field of jurisprudence to work on the journal, as well as on the timely rotation of reviewers.
Reviewers are invited to work with the journal on the recommendation of the Editor-in-Chief, his deputy, members of the Editorial Board, as well as the authors.
The first review of new reviewers is evaluated according to the following algorithm:
Each of the items can be assigned from 1 up to 5 points, where 1 is the minimum score and 5 is the maximum score.
If the quality of the review is not satisfactory to the Editor-in-Chief, the cooperation with the reviewer is terminated.
The editors of the journal “Current Issues of the State and Law” have the right to evaluate an unlimited number of reviews of all experts involved in the work with the journal according to the presented algorithm.
Mechanism for engaging reviewers to work on the journal
The Editorial Board of the journal “Current Issues of the State and Law” considers peer-review as one of the most important procedures in the work with the journal and values the experience and time of experts who are involved in reviewing.
Reviewers of the journal “Current Issues of the State and Law” are entitled to priority publication.
Confidentiality
The Editorial Board of the journal “Current Issues of the State and Law” does not share personal data of reviewers and personal data of authors.
Any manuscript is considered by the Editorial Board of the journal “Current Issues of the State and Law” as a confidential document. The Editorial Board expects that reviewers will not share or discuss manuscripts with third parties without the consent of the Editor-in-Chief.
Reviewers may involve third parties in the work on the review only with the consent of the Editor-in-Chief.
Responsibility of the reviewer
By agreeing to review manuscripts for the journal “Current Issues of the State and Law”, the reviewer agrees to follow the journal’s policy in evaluating the manuscript, preparing the review, as well as in terms of reviewer behavior and ethical requirements.
The reviewer should strive to ensure the high quality of published materials in the journal “Current Issues of the State and Law”, as much as the editor, and therefore should review the manuscript only if they have enough experience in the field in question and enough time to thoroughly and comprehensively check the article.
The reviewer must inform the Editor-in-Chief of any conflict of interest (personal, financial, intellectual, professional, political, or religious). In case of doubts, the situation should be discussed with the Editor-in-Chief.
The reviewer is obliged to refuse to review if they:
– are a supervisor or subordinate of the author of the manuscript, as well as a holder of joint grants;
– do not plan to prepare a review, but only wants to familiarize with the text of the article;
– are preparing their own article on a similar topic for publication;
– review an article on a similar topic.
The reviewer is obliged to inform the editor about their intention to review the article, as well as to complete the work within the term specified by the editor. If it is impossible to conduct the review for a number of reasons, it is advisable to recommend another expert to the editor.
A reviewer may not use their status for personal gain or impose references to their work on authors.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR REVIEWERS
For the reviewer’s convenience, the editors of “Current Issues of the State and Law” suggest using the Quick Review Form – it reflects the questions that the editor needs to answer in order to make a decision about the article.
The Editorial Board of the journal asks the reviewer to pay more attention to the “Commentary” section to help authors improve current and future papers.
Content and structure of the review
The editorial board of “Current Issues of the State and Law” received permission to use NEICON guidelines in the journal’s peer review policy.
10 criteria by which a manuscript should be evaluated:
In addition to the quick review form, the editorial board of the journal “Current Issues of the State and Law” recommends that reviewers adhere to the following structure of the review.
Comments for the editor
Conflict of Interest – describes an actual or potential conflict of interest related to the content of the manuscript or its authors that could lead to a biased conclusion.
Confidential comments – this section is for comments that will not be shared with the authors. It includes the reviewer’s final judgment about the fate of the manuscript, the reviewer’s assumptions, expressions of doubt about possible ethical violations, and recommendations and accompanying comments (e.g., the reviewer may advise the editor to request additional information from the author). Anticipated decision – usually a brief conclusion about the fate of the manuscript.
Comments for authors
Introduction – this section describes the main conclusions and the value of the article for readers. Main comments – this section describes the relevance to the aims and scope of the journal, the level of validity, and ethical behavior.
Special comments – the reviewer provides an evaluation of the sections of the article (abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion) or comments on specific pages, paragraphs, or lines.
Recommendations to the author – the reviewer makes recommendations to the author to improve the quality of the manuscript and possibly future research.
Concluding comment – a brief description of the strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript without any additional recommendations.
MANUSCRIPT EVALUATION CRITERIA
Relevance to the subject area
No time should be wasted reviewing an irrelevant manuscript, regardless of its quality. The first thing to determine is whether the manuscript is relevant to the subject area of the scientific journal and the interests of its audience.
Reasonableness
Does the study design, scientific methods, structure and content, and depth of analysis meet all the necessary requirements, does it not deviate from the principles of unbiased scientific research, and are the results of the study replicable?
Novelty
Did the research bring something new to the relevant subject area?
Ethicality
Does the research meet the requirements of originality? No matter how great the perceived significance of a manuscript is, it cannot be accepted for publication in case of redundancy, presence of plagiarism, or violation of the basic ethical principles of scientific research: legality, usefulness, and respect for human beings.
Evaluation of manuscript elements
The Editorial Board of the journal “Current Issues of the State and Law” suggests using the following questions to speed up the process of preparing an expert opinion and presenting the most complete information about the article to the editor and the author.
Title
Does the title accurately correspond to the content of the manuscript? Will the title attract the readers’ attention?
Abstract
Is the content of the manuscript adequately summarized in the abstract (abstract structured, aims, methods, results, and significance described)?
Are there discrepancies between the abstract and sections of the manuscript? Can the abstract be understood without reading the manuscript?
Introduction
Is the introduction brief? Is the purpose of the study and the problem clearly defined? Does the author justify the relevance and significance of the study based on the literature review? Does the author provide definitions of terms that appear in the manuscript?
Literature review
How coherent is the literature review?
Methods
Would another researcher be able to replicate the results of the study using the proposed methods, or are the methods unclear?
Do the authors justify their choices when describing the study methods?
How is the research design presented?
How does the data analysis help in accomplishing the purpose of the study?
Results
Are the results clearly explained? Does the order in which the results are presented match the order in which the methods are described? Are the results justified and expected or unexpected? Are there results that are not preceded by an appropriate description in the “Methods” section? How accurate is the presentation of results?
Discussion
Is the discussion concise? If not, how can it be shortened?
Are the authors’ conclusions consistent with the results obtained in the study? If unexpected results are obtained, do the authors analyze them appropriately? What is the potential contribution of the study to the field and to global science?
Conclusions
Do the authors note limitations of the study? Are there additional limitations that should be noted? What are the authors’ views on these limitations? What are the authors' views on the direction of future research?
List of references
Does the reference list follow the format of the journal? Are there any bibliographic errors in the reference list? Are the citations to the articles in the reference list in the body of the manuscript correct? Are there important works that are not mentioned but should be noted? Are there more references in the article than necessary? Are the cited references up to date?
Tables
If there are tables in the article, do they correctly describe the results? Should one or more tables be added to the article? Is the data presented in tables handled appropriately and make the information easier to understand rather than more complicated?
Figures
Are tables and figures an appropriate choice for the task at hand? Can the results be illustrated in other ways? Do figures and graphs reliably show important results? Do the figures and graphs need to be modified to present the results more accurately and clearly? Do the captions of figures and graphs allow the information to be understood without referring to the manuscript itself?
Conflict of interest disclosure
Is funding and conflict of interest information clearly stated?
CONDITIONS FOR ACCEPTING OR REJECTING A MANUSCRIPT
The Editorial Board of “Current Issues of the State and Law” suggests using the following rationale for the reviewer’s final decision.
Accept the article for publication
The reviewer realizes that the article is ready for publication in the current submission. The article is justified, ethical, significant for the scientific community and complements already published works, the writing style is clear and concise.
Accept after minor revision
There are non-critical remarks to the article that need to be corrected. These may be poor style of the article, lack of clarity of presentation, insufficiently elaborated structure of the article, errors in references, duplication of information in figures and tables and in the text of the article. After making changes and re-evaluation, the article can be accepted for publication.
Accept after significant revision and review of the article
The article has serious flaws and errors affecting the reliability of the results obtained: problems with ethics, research design, gaps in the description of research methods, poorly presented results or their incorrect interpretation, insufficiently complete description of the limitations of the study, contradictory (or refuted by the author’s own statements) conclusions, lack of references to important studies, unclear tables and figures that require serious revision. After re-evaluation, the article may be accepted, rejected, or sent for additional review. Such a decision often requires the collection of additional data from the author.
Reject
The paper does not meet the goals and objectives of the journal, has one or more unrecoverable flaws or serious ethical problems. The reviewer should give detailed comments, arguing their decision, as they can help the author to significantly improve the work.
Reject and offer the author to re-submit the article for reconsideration
The topic or research question posed is interesting, but the author uses incorrect or insufficiently reliable methods, hence the data obtained are not reliable either. This decision is also possible when the paper requires many revisions or when it is not possible to obtain the requested additional information from the author. Authors are encouraged to conduct the study with the recommended changes again and submit new results for consideration.
Review editing
The Editorial Board of the journal “Current Issues of the State and Law” expects reviews to be written in a friendly tone and in accordance with the rules of the Russian language. Personal attacks, insulting the author, and unfair criticism of any aspect of the research, language and style of the manuscript, etc. are prohibited.
The editorial board of the journal “Current Issues of the State and Law” tries to pass the reviews to the authors in their original form, but in some cases it may be necessary to change the text of the review without losing its meaning (for example, when combining the comments of several experts on the same issue or if there are confidential comments in the section of the review, which is intended for the author).
The editorial board of the journal “Current Issues of the State and Law” has the right to send the review for revision to the expert in case of a large number of errors or unacceptable tone of the review.
Submitted for possible open access publication under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) License
(http://creativecommons.org/l/censes/by/4.0/)
