Appeals process
Knowledge Summaries and articles published in Veterinary Evidence undergo a thorough peer-review process where a minimum of two referees review each paper. The Associate Editor makes a recommendation to the Editor-in-chief, who makes the overall decision. Veterinary Evidence aims to provide a fair and objective critique of papers. (For more information on the review process please see our Guidelines for reviewers).
If your paper has been rejected it may be because:
If you feel your paper has been unfairly rejected by Veterinary Evidence then you can appeal the decision by writing a one-time appeal letter.
In order to dispute the decision please provide the following within your appeal letter:
Please ensure your appeal letter is a respectful, objective explanation which provides new evidence.
Please email your appeal letter to the editorial office. Appeals may take several weeks, if not longer, to resolve.
All letters are read by the Editor-in-chief. The Editor-in-chief may decide to send the paper to additional referees to help inform their decision, and the Associate Editor of the paper in question may also be requested to assist. The Editor-in-chief’s decision is final.
All communication surrounding the appeal will be through the editorial office.
Veterinary Evidence hopes authors of rejected papers will not be discouraged from submitting to the journal in the future.
Complaints
Veterinary Evidence strives to uphold the principles of best practice in scholarly publishing. Therefore, should Veterinary Evidence fall short of our readers’, authors’ or reviewers’ expectations then we want to hear about it, so that we may improve our policies and/or processes.
If you would like to raise a complaint against Veterinary Evidence, whether about its policies, processes, staff, Editorial Board or RCVS Knowledge, then please email the editorial office with factual details, as soon as is reasonably possible.
Complaints will be dealt with by the Managing Editor, or assigned by them to an appropriate member of the editorial team. Complaints will be dealt with on a case by case basis and escalated accordingly to either the Editor-in-chief or to the Executive Director of RCVS Knowledge.
We aim to acknowledge the complaint within 3 days and to have investigated within 4 weeks.
Letters to the Editor
Submission:
Letters to the Editor should not exceed 500 words, have no more than 5 references, and have a maximum of 3 authors.
Only one letter may be submitted by any single author or group of authors on any one published paper.
Letters should be succinct, objective, constructive and courteous.
Submit your Letter to the Editor to our online submission system.
Process:
The Editor-in-chief will read and send all letters to the author for their response. Letters and responses are published at the same time.
Submitters will not receive the author’s response before publication.
Letters will not be censored but they may be edited by the in-house editorial team to ensure clarity or grammatical correctness.
Veterinary Evidence encourages balanced and respectful debate and will not be a forum for individual grievances.
Policy:
All letters are read by the Editor-in-chief and may be sent to independent referees. If the letter is deemed inaccurate or misleading then it will be returned to the submitter. Submitters will either be given the opportunity to revise their letter, or the Editor-in-Chief will decide that the matter is closed.