All manuscripts are subject to double-blind peer review and are expected to meet standards of academic excellence. Each submission will be considered by an editor and—if not rejected outright—by 3 peer-reviewers, whose identities will remain anonymous to the authors. Author identities will also remain anonymous to JLKD reviewers.
The aim of the review process is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article, in terms of originality, interest, up-to-dateness, coherence, and balanced argumentation. As such, all manuscripts submitted to JLKD go through a two-step double-blind peer review process.
The editor(s) of the journal first review(s) each manuscript to see if it meets the basic requirements for articles published in the journal (i.e., that it reports on original research or presents original content that links to previous research, theory, and that it is of sufficient quality to merit external review). Technical checks will also be made to see if manuscripts follow JLKD Editorial Style, the APA reference style (6th edition), and other JLKD standards (especially ethical ones). Manuscripts which do not meet these requirements are not sent out for further review, and their authors will be notified.
Following the internal review, submissions which meet the basic requirements and the bottom-line standards set by JLKD are sent out for doubly-masked peer review (by 2 experts in the field) either from the journal's editorial panel or from our larger list of reviewers. Following the external review, the authors are notified of the decision (accept as is, accept pending changes, revise and resubmit, or reject) and can track the process of peer review and submission via: http://lj.um.ac.ir.