All articles submitted to the WJAE are subjected to a double blinded peer-review process to ensure originality, quality and consistency. Please also visit Publication Ethics and Malpractice for additional information on the code of practice guides that we commit to follow. The process consists of the following steps.

Editorial evaluation
1) The Editorial Board first evaluates all submitted manuscripts for originality, consistency and suitability to the scope of the Journal. WJAE peer-review policy does not allow editors to accept any articles without sending them to external reviewers, no matter how exceptional it is.
2) However, the Editorial Board can reject insufficiently original articles, have severe scientific flaws, are poorly written in English, or are outside the scope of the Journal. Note that the board’s decision is final.
3) The Editorial Board uses several software solutions to control plagiarism, in case of which the manuscript is rejected immediately. Furthermore, the Journal has the right to take any actions related to the issue, including notification of the relevant authorities, such as the authors’ institutions.
4) As editors and reviewers invest significant time in the submission, the submissions cannot be withdrawn (except for the most compelling and inevitable causes) after the editorial desk evaluation, regardless of the review stage the manuscript is at. If the author(s) insist on withdrawing the manuscript without any valid reason, the manuscript will be rejected, since we assume that this is unacceptable behavior of the author(s) according to the publication ethics. Further submissions by these authors can be rejected directly by the Editorial Board.

Review by external referees
1) If the manuscript passes the desk evaluation, it is assigned to a section editor, a member of the Editorial Board. The assigned section editor then sends the manuscript to at least two reviewers who are well-demonstrated experts in the field of the manuscript with relevant publications and/or other scientifically acceptable outputs. Reviewers are expected to hold a PhD or, in rare cases, have at least ten years of working experience in the relevant field with proven proficiency.
2) Reviewers are given six weeks to complete their reviews. However, in some cases, it can take more than six weeks for some articles to be reviewed. After six weeks, WJAE sends regular reminders to the reviewers.

Final decision
1) Once the review reports are received, the Editorial Board evaluates the reports and makes one of the four decisions based on the reviewers’ comments and suggestions.
2) The authors are notified about the decision.
     a) Accept as it is: Authors are supplied with a copy editing version and asked to start the proofreading and copyediting.
     b) Revisions Required: The authors are asked to revise their manuscript according to the reviewers’ comments. The Editorial Board will evaluate the revised manuscript according to the reviewers’ comments, and a final decision will be made for publication. Hence, the Editorial Board urges the authors to address each specific point made by the reviewers and justify their responses where appropriate. Listing how the authors responded to each reviewer’s comments is also considered a good practice. The revision process should be completed within two weeks at the latest. The final decision can be either accepted or rejected.
     c) Resubmit for Review: The authors are asked to revise their manuscript according to the reviewers’ comments. The revised version is sent back to the reviewers for the second round of review. Reviewers then write a new report, and the Editorial Board decides based on the new report. The final decision will be made on the manuscript’s quality rather than the authors’ progress. The final decision can be either accepted, rejected, or revisions required.
     d) Reject or Not suitable for WJAE: The author will be notified with the reviewers’ reports, helping them improve their manuscript. In the latter case, we will ask the reviewers to suggest a relevant journal to the author when possible.
3) If the final decision, after the first or second round of review, is “Accepted”, the authors will be asked to cooperate with the Journal’s copyediting editor for copyediting and proofreading for the timely publication of their article.

Note that the decisions of the Editorial Board, who are responsible for the final decision, are final. Further, note that the Editorial Board might change its decision if the due dates are not respected.