Population Research and Policy Review (PRPR) depends on the expertise of scholars to evaluate the submissions we receive. We are grateful for the time they give to ensuring that we publish high-quality work that will be of interest to a broad range of demographers and population scientists.

Below we offer general Guidelines for Peer Reviewers—including on Evaluating the Submission, Preparing the Reviewer Report, and Submitting the Reviewer Report. Our goal is to facilitate providing authors with targeted feedback that will help develop their work for publication in PRPR or elsewhere.

All peer reviews are conducted through Springer Nature’s Article Processing Platform (SNAPP) 

Once you accept an invitation to review, please be aware that you will not receive a second confirmation email with a direct link to the manuscript or additional instructions. You will need to sign in to SNAPP to access the manuscript.

We ask that you complete your review by the deadline indicated in the invitation. If this is not possible, please contact the assigned Editor as soon as possible to request an alternative date.

Guidelines for Peer Reviewers

Population Research and Policy Review (PRPR) follows a double-blind review process. We expect that all reviewers will treat submissions confidentially and adhere to the COPE Ethical Guidelines. 

Submissions should be evaluated according to the specific Article Type—full-length Research Article, Brief Report, or Research Review.

Reviewer Reports must be prepared in English.

Important. The use of Generative AI or other large language models (LLMs) to assess submissions and prepare Reviewer Reports is strictly prohibited. The use of these tools may violate confidentiality, proprietary, and privacy rights.

Evaluating the Submission

When you are ready to evaluate the submission, please download the files—including the MANUSCRIPT FILE and any TABLES, FIGURES, SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL, and POINT BY POINT RESPONSE (more information on the file types can be found here).

We ask that you consider the following in your evaluation process:

• Read the entire submission, including any supplementary material, with consideration for expectations of the Article Type and the PRPR Style Guide.

• Pay close attention to the alignment between the submission objectives and the data and methods, the utility of the tables and figures, and the thoroughness of the discussion and conclusion.

• Analyze the submission overall but also the specific sections required for the Article Type.

• Offer detailed comments that explain the points you raise and provide the author(s) with feedback as to how these may be addressed.

• Include citations to relevant prior work to assist the author(s) in improving their work, especially if you feel they have overlooked key literature. Avoid excessive self-citations, however.

• Maintain a neutral tone that is focused on providing constructive feedback that will help the author(s) improve their work. Do not include a specific decision recommendation in your comments.

• Comments that are overly critical, derogatory, or otherwise do not serve to help the author(s) will not be tolerated. Reviews with such comments will be rescinded.

 

Preparing the Reviewer Report

Please structure the feedback to the author(s) in your Reviewer Report as follows:

• Provide a brief overview (one paragraph) outlining the objective of the submission and your assessment of the main contributions and strengths. Summarize what you see as the major issues/ weaknesses/ areas for improvement.

• Follow this with specific comments detailing these major issues. These may be organized by theme or by section of the manuscript.

o Please number each specific issue you raise—this is helpful to the Editors when synthesizing across reviewers and to the author(s) when responding. Enumerating subpoints (e.g., “1a,” “1b”, etc.) may be helpful but we ask that you keep the formatting of your report simple.

o Refer to the specific locations in the text (manuscript page number, paragraph), the tables, or figures, as necessary.

• You may conclude your report with “minor” matters related to formatting, spelling and grammar, and overall presentation. Keep these comments focused and constructive; directing the author(s) to specific entries in the PRPR Style Guide is helpful. The bulk of your comments should be on the scientific content and merit of the submission.

 

Submitting the Reviewer Report

In SNAPP, you will be asked to make an overall recommendation on the submission, offer any “Confidential feedback for the editor,” and provide “Feedback for the author(s).”

• Overall recommendation. Please indicate whether you recommend the editor issue a “Reject,” “Revise,” or “Accept” decision for the submission (these are the only options currently available in SNAPP).

• Confidential feedback for the editor. In the SNAPP form you may provide confidential comments to the editor only. 

o Such comments may offer the rationale for your recommendation, raise concerns about the manuscript that for whatever reason you did not want to provide directly to the author(s), or any other matters.

o We do ask that if you recommend “Revise” you include here an assessment of whether you would characterize this a “major” or “minor” revision, and some indication of how likely you think the author(s) will be able to address the points you raised satisfactorily.

• Feedback for the author(s). This is where you include your Reviewer Report, the comments that will be made available—as is—to the author(s).

o We prefer that you paste your review text directly into the SNAPP form, with a blank like separating each paragraph/ issue.

o Reviews with more complex formatting (e.g., mathematical expressions) may be uploaded as an attachment. Be sure to remove any identifying metadata from attachments.

o Again, please do not include your specific decision recommendation in this text.