Referees’ reports provide valuable recommendations to the editors and are the cornerstone of LEF-E’s reputation and quality. If you wish to become a referee for LEF-E, please read the following information. If you meet and accept the requirements, e-mail your résumé as an attachment to the editor at editor@lef-e.org. Please indicate in the body of the e-mail your area(s) of specialization and interest along with the language(s) with which you feel confident working (English, French, or Spanish). In order to save trees and avoid delays, the editor and referees will communicate by electronic means only.
Selection Criteria
The editors determine the selection of the referees. Each referee needs to hold a doctoral degree in a field related to the journal (French, Francophone, Spanish, Latin American, or comparative literatures) and must be, or was, a faculty member in higher education.
Task of the Referee
The editors will ask each referee to read a maximum of four submissions per academic year. Upon receipt of a manuscript, the referee will have six weeks to review it and e-mail his/her report to the editor using the form available online (please click here to download it). Referees can complete the report in English, French, or Spanish and are required to make one of the following recommendations to the editor: publishable, publishable with changes and revisions, or not publishable. Please keep in mind that LEF-E asks authors not to submit their work simultaneously to other journals. Therefore, referees are required to meet the six-week deadline.
Rights of the Referee
A referee can choose to refuse to evaluate a manuscript for any of the following reasons, as long as he/she does it within one week of the receipt of the editor’s e-mail:
.....• cannot meet the deadline
.....• is uncomfortable with the language of the manuscript
.....• is not confident in the topic of the article
.....• recognizes the author and has conflicting interests in evaluating his/her job
LEF-E will maintain the anonymity of the referees and will not provide their names to the author. The submitter will receive a summary of the report without the evaluators’ names on it.
Obligations of the Referee
Referees should consider the submitter’s manuscript to be highly confidential material. Upon completion of the report or immediately after taking the decision not to do the evaluation, the referee must shred the manuscript.
Each referee gives LEF-E the authorization to publish his/her name, title, and academic affiliation on the “Board of Referees” page.
Compensation
As LEF-E is a free online journal, it will not financially compensate referees for their work. Nevertheless, LEF-E grants permission for referees to use its name to advertise their role in the journal on their résumé, website(s), etc. In addition, as applicable, LEF-E will provide recommendation letters to the referees regarding the quality of their evaluations.
