The peer-review process consists of such steps:
1. Submission of Paper: An author submits the article, the survey of an academic event, or a review of a book to the journal "Humanitarian Vision" via e-mail.
2. Editorial Office Assessment: The Executive Secretaries check the submitted materials' composition and arrangement against the journal’s Author Guidelines to ensure they include the required sections and stylizations. They also check all submitted materials for plagiarism. The quality of the submitted materials is not assessed at this point, only formal parameters.
3. Appraisal by the Editor-in-Chief (EIC): The EIC checks that the submitted materials are appropriate for the journal and are sufficiently original and interesting. If not, they may be rejected without being reviewed any further.
4. Invitation to Reviewers: The EIC sends invitations to individuals he or she believes would be external appropriate reviewers, i.e., experts in the relevant field of research, must not have published papers with none of the authors of the manuscript (at least five years), and must not have any conflict of interest with the content of the manuscript. As responses are received, further invitations are issued, if necessary, until the required number of acceptances is obtained (two external peer reviews).
5. Response to Invitations: Potential reviewers consider the invitation against their expertise, conflicts of interest, and availability. They then accept or decline. If possible, when declining, they might also suggest alternative reviewers.
6. The Review is Conducted: The reviewer sets time aside to read the paper several times. The first read is used to form an initial impression of the work. If major problems are found at this stage, the reviewer may feel comfortable rejecting the paper without further work. Otherwise, they will read the paper several times, taking notes to build a detailed point-by-point review. The review is then submitted to the journal, with a recommendation to accept or reject it – or else with a revision request (usually flagged as either major or minor) before it is reconsidered. Duration of review preparation may last from 2 to 4 months.
7. Journal Evaluates the Reviews: The EIC considers all the returned reviews before making an overall decision. If the reviews differ widely, the editor may invite an additional external reviewer to get an extra opinion before making a decision.
8. The Decision is Communicated: The EIC sends a decision email to the author, including any relevant reviewer comments. The comments are anonymous.
9. Accepted papers are sent to production. If the article is rejected or sent back for either major or minor revision, the EIC should include constructive anonymous comments from the reviewers to help the author improve the article. At this point, reviewers should also be sent an email or letter letting them know the outcome of their review. If the paper was sent back for revision, the reviewers should expect to receive a new version, unless they have opted out of further participation. However, where only minor changes were requested, this follow-up review might be done by the EIC. Reviews of monographs, surveys of philosophical events, and translations also are peer-reviewed internally by the members of the editorial board or the editor-in-chief and his or her deputies.