DEIS     

Transactions on Dielectrics
and Electrical Insulation


Guidelines for Referees

It is the policy of the Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation to have all papers reviewed for technical contents, following the guidelines of the IEEE and the DEIS editorial policies. The Editorial Board selects and asks recognized experts in the field of the submitted manuscripts, to write a review report on the papers. The review should be done in a reasonable time, normally one month, but can be extended for lengthy or very complex papers.

It should be noted that all manuscripts sent out for review must be kept confidential, and cannot be quoted in the open literature. If a reviewer feels unqualified, or for other reasons cannot write the report in the allotted time, the manuscript must be returned immediately to the Editor, so that another reviewer can be chosen. However, it is permissible to hand the review task over to a colleague, provided that this colleague is told about the confidentiality and given the deadline for the review. In such cases, it is essential that the Editor who sent the manuscript is notified and given the new reviewer's name, mailing address and e-mail address.

To facilitate the review, the following guidelines may be helpful. The most important aspect is a judgement on the technical quality of the manuscript. This includes answers to questions such as those listed below.

Is there any new material in the manuscript, and is this new work properly delineated from the work mentioned in the references?
NOTE: In review papers, normally no new and unpublished material or data should be given, but where this occurs, the status should be clearly indicated, either in the text or with a reference such as "[12] B. L. Z. Bub, unpublished data, 1901.".

Has this paper been published in a recent IEEE Conference Record, or is it an updated and extended version of such an earlier presented paper?
NOTE: Similar versions must be rejected outright; the IEEE forbids republication of the same work. Conference papers (normally having size limits in the Conference record) should either be expanded into a full Transactions paper (these have no size limits), or reduced to the size of a short note such as a Communication.

Is the TDEI the correct journal to publish this paper, or are there other Transactions or journals in which this paper should be published?
NOTE: Topics from astrology to zymurgy clearly are outside the scope of the TDEI, but there is a large area of overlap to existing specialties, e.g. electrostatics, materials technology, and instrumentation. The gross mismatches will have been weeded out by the Editorial Board, but if a reviewer feels that the paper contains a topic that should be published elsewhere, this should be stated in the review report. In reviews, any areas of overlap should be emphasized and explained, with ample references to works in the adjacent field, for the benefit of the TDEI readers.

Are the conclusions technically sound, and is sufficient evidence given for the conclusions in the paper (either in data, theory, or references)?

Are there inaccuracies or errors in the presentation, and is the presentation clear and understandable by a reader, not necessarily expert in the narrow field of the manuscript?

Could the paper be improved by a longer or shorter presentation, and are the Sections (introduction, discussion, conclusion, etc.) balanced?

Do the title and the abstract reflect the contents of the paper?
NOTE: Papers with overly long and complex titles may be indexed poorly, and are not read as often as papers with short, clear titles. Abstracts are used by indexing services, and must not exceed ca. 200 words. Every paper and Communication must have an Abstract, only Discussions on previously published material can be accepted without this summary.

Are all units SI units? The IEEE does not publish papers with e.g. `inch' for length: use m, mm, etc. instead. Similarly, all non-SI pressure units should be changed to Pa, kPa or equivalent.
NOTE: The SI system does not allow plurification of units: do not write "a distance of 12 meters", or even worse "12 ms", but use the number and unit as "12 m". This differs from text in non-technical prose, where "twelve meters" would be allowed.

Are the Figures and Tables clear and essential for good presentation of the material covered? Are there too many or to few for clarification of the text?
NOTE: Normally, graphs of numerical data are clearer than tables, and are preferred. Tables should be logically assembled, complete with column headers, units, etc. and uniform in contents of each row and column. The use of extended data tables is strongly discouraged; any such Tables that are essential to the paper, or that will save readers much computing time and effort, should be published instead on the TDEI WWW, and an appropriate reference to the existence and location should be given in the text, perhaps with an abbreviated table as discussion example.

The referee need not answer these questions point by point, but where appropriate should indicate deficiencies or problems in these areas, and in all cases should comment on the general quality of the paper. Would the manuscript improve if it were changed to a Review, or shortened to a Communication? Would it get a better audience if sent to a different Transactions or other journal? Would the TDEI readers benefit by reading the paper if it covers a topic outside the main dielectrics and insulation fields?

In addition to the technical opinions, the referee may want to correct minor grammatical or spelling errors. Such errors, as well as essential marking of unclear passages, etc., should be done on the manuscript itself: this is easier than giving lengthy details in a cover letter. To facilitate later editorial review of the text, marking should be done with pencil, of any color, as long as the color is uniform throughout the manuscript. The Figures and Tables are not originals; these too should be marked where needed; e.g. check for non-SI units, missing, unreadable or unclear axis labels, poor or overly long captions, etc.

The conclusion of the referee can be
  1. Acceptance without mandatory changes, except perhaps minor ones, marked on the manuscript and/or as elaborated in the review report.
  2. Complete rejection, either on technical grounds, or because the manuscript was prepublished, or should be sent to another journal.
  3. Conditional acceptance with required technical revision to make the paper understandable, to correct errors in conclusion, and/or to fix other problems as outlined in the review report.

NOTE: The referee should write a concise statement on the specific requirements for any requested changes, and the reason for this opinion. This statement should be printed on a separate sheet, without letterhead or signature. As a rule, this review report is sent to the main author (correspondent), although occasionally the report may be rephrased. The review report is sent without the referee's name and address, unless the referee specifically includes a statement such as "do not delete signature from author's copy". Similarly, authors are given the option of having the paper reviewed anonymously; some manuscripts sent for review may thus not have the author's name and institution listed.

Finally, the referee should take no longer than three or four weeks before returning the reviewed manuscript with a referee report. One month should be considered the maximum for the review process of normal papers. If the referee foresees that a report cannot be written within the above time interval, he/she must immediately contact the Editor who sent the manuscript, or return the manuscript by return mail, so that another referee can be assigned.

In case of questions on the review process or associated matters, see the DEIS editorial policies, or contact any member of the Editorial Board for more information.

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Last update: 17 October 2001, by htdb2html