The peer review procedure

            Any material received by email reaches, first of all, the editorial secretary who, in the shortest possible time, confirms its receipt. The material is sent to the internal members of the scientific board, who decide whether it can be the subject of a publication or not. If this preliminary decision is yes, the material evaluation procedure continues. The author is informed of the outcome of the decision, regardless of whether it is a preliminary yes or a rejection.

            Not all materials go through this procedure since the publishing house also edits collection catalogs or works authored by the researchers of the History Museum of Galați, alone or in collaboration. In this situation, a permanent check is carried out throughout the production of the paper. In addition, in such situations, the prior publication of some fragments in specialized journals, including Danubius, may be requested.

           In both cases (internal authors or external authors who have received prior approval), the papers are evaluated by specialized reviewers. The publishing house has a board of reviewers that are preferred, but other specialists often need to be contacted, in the case of proposals that exceed the area of competence of the permanent board. The scientific board decides to which reviewers each paper will be sent. We try, as much as possible, to use the blind peer-review system. In some situations, especially in the case of local history, it is quite difficult to hide the identity of the author.

           As a rule, a work is sent to two reviewers, with the exception of the situation where the author already comes with the recommendation of a personality in the field (when it can be sent to a single reviewer chosen by the publishing house, for confirmation). If the reviewers' evaluations do not agree, a third party, decisive, is called upon.

           The decision regarding the publication is announced to the author and, if it is favorable, this decision is communicated to him along with the proposals for improvement.

           The editorial secretary also carries out a formal evaluation of the material, checking in particular the system of references, the division into chapters, sub-chapters and sections, the captions of the illustrations, the formatting and the writing styles, especially in the case of inserted tables and images. The reference system chosen by the author must be used consistently and according to its specific rules throughout the work. It is not allowed to use several systems in the same work, even if it is a collective volume. The remarks are sent to the author, with possible proposals for improvement.

           The work resubmitted by the author, in its final form, is first of all checked by the editorial secretary, under a formal aspect. Afterwards, a member of the internal scientific board checks the content changes. The author is requested to distinctly mark new interventions on the text, except for spelling changes. Content improvement operations, if they were considered absolutely necessary, are given for validation to the reviewer who proposed them. The reviewer is also consulted in the situation where the changes exceed the verification powers of the members of the internal scientific council. Sometimes the author and the reviewer are put in contact to facilitate communication between them and, implicitly, the operation of improving the material.

           Once a consensus is reached and the paper acquires a final form from a scientific point of view, the manuscript is sent to the editorial secretary who forwards it to an editor. The editor is not always a person from inside the publishing house. At times, he may be a former academic from the field of Letters, which is called upon for this purpose. The editor makes the necessary language changes using the „Track Changes” function. The corrected manuscript is sent to the author for validation.

           The format of the paper is usually decided by the publisher, the author being able to express his preference for certain fonts and formatting. The cover is also made by mutual agreement between the author and the publisher.