Review Guidelines
Ganaya: Jurnal Ilmu Sosial dan Humaniora is committed to maintaining high academic standards through a rigorous, objective, transparent, and ethical peer-review process. The journal implements a single-blind peer-review system, in which reviewers are aware of the authors' identities, while reviewers' identities remain confidential. Manuscripts that pass the initial editorial screening are evaluated by at least one independent reviewer with relevant academic expertise.
The peer-review process aims to ensure that published manuscripts demonstrate originality, methodological rigor, scholarly significance, and meaningful contributions to the advancement of knowledge in Social Sciences and Humanities.
1. Initial Manuscript Review
Reviewers should initially examine the manuscript's title, abstract, keywords, and overall content to determine its relevance to the journal's Focus and Scope.
The journal covers Social Sciences, Sociology, Political Science, Politics, Accounting, Auditing, Economics, Geography, History, Public Administration, Public Policy, Tourism, Culture and Society, Culture and Language, Multiculturalism, and other closely related interdisciplinary fields within Social Sciences and Humanities.
The journal primarily considers Original Research Articles and Review Articles. Case Studies and Literary Studies may also be considered on a limited and selective basis when they demonstrate substantial scholarly contributions and clear relevance to the journal's disciplinary coverage.
The initial assessment should consider the manuscript's originality, academic significance, research objectives, methodological appropriateness, theoretical or conceptual relevance, and potential contribution to Social Sciences and Humanities.
Reviewers should also verify that the manuscript generally complies with the journal's Author Guidelines, manuscript structure, formatting requirements, reference standards, and publication ethics policies.
Manuscripts addressing interdisciplinary subjects must demonstrate a clear theoretical, methodological, or analytical connection to Social Sciences and Humanities rather than merely presenting general descriptions of unrelated disciplinary issues.
Reviewers who lack sufficient expertise, identify potential conflicts of interest, or cannot complete the evaluation within the specified timeframe should promptly inform the editorial team.
2. Comprehensive Manuscript Evaluation
Reviewers should conduct a thorough, systematic, and objective assessment of the manuscript based on the following criteria:
a. Originality and Scholarly Contribution
The manuscript must present original research findings, theoretical perspectives, critical interpretations, or scholarly insights that contribute meaningfully to Social Sciences and Humanities.
Reviewers should assess whether the manuscript identifies a significant research problem, addresses an identifiable research gap, demonstrates academic novelty, and advances existing knowledge.
The manuscript should provide substantive theoretical, empirical, methodological, historical, social, cultural, economic, political, or practical contributions appropriate to its disciplinary focus.
b. Title, Abstract, and Keywords
The title must accurately represent the research subject, problem, or phenomenon and must not exceed 20 words.
The abstract must be presented in a single paragraph of no more than 250 words and clearly summarize the research background, objectives, methodology, principal findings, and conclusions.
Greater emphasis should be placed on the research findings and conclusions rather than extensive background descriptions or methodological explanations.
Keywords must consist of three to five relevant terms that accurately represent the manuscript's principal concepts, subject matter, methodology, or scholarly contribution.
c. Introduction
The Introduction must clearly establish the research background, academic significance, relevant previous studies, research gap, and research objectives.
Reviewers should evaluate whether the manuscript critically engages with existing scholarly literature, identifies unresolved academic questions, and explains the originality and significance of the proposed investigation.
The Introduction must demonstrate a coherent relationship between the research problem, theoretical or conceptual perspectives, research objectives, and expected scholarly contribution.
For interdisciplinary manuscripts, reviewers should ensure that the research problem and objectives are meaningfully connected to the journal's disciplinary coverage.
d. Research Methodology
The Method section must present a clear, concise, operational, and methodologically appropriate explanation of the research procedures.
In accordance with the journal's Author Guidelines, the Method section must be written in a single coherent paragraph without in-text citations or theoretical quotations.
Reviewers should evaluate the suitability of the research design, research approach, data sources, sampling or informant selection procedures where applicable, research instruments, data collection techniques, and analytical methods.
Methodological evaluation must consider the characteristics of the manuscript type and the research approach employed.
For qualitative research, reviewers should assess the appropriateness of the research context, participant or document selection, data collection procedures, interpretative techniques, and strategies supporting the credibility of the findings.
For quantitative research, reviewers should evaluate the clarity of research variables, sampling procedures, measurement instruments, data collection processes, statistical analyses, and interpretation of results.
For mixed-methods research, reviewers should examine the appropriateness of qualitative and quantitative procedures and the integration of findings.
For historical, documentary, and textual research, reviewers should assess source selection, authenticity and credibility where applicable, analytical frameworks, and procedures for interpreting historical or textual evidence.
For Review Articles, reviewers should evaluate the literature identification, selection, evaluation, and synthesis procedures, including the use of appropriate academic databases, inclusion and exclusion criteria where applicable, and analytical frameworks.
For Case Studies, reviewers should assess the rationale for case selection, research context, methodological procedures, analytical depth, and broader scholarly implications.
For Literary Studies, reviewers should assess the selection of literary texts, theoretical or interpretative frameworks, textual analysis procedures, and contributions to understanding social, cultural, historical, linguistic, or other humanities-related phenomena.
Methodological components that are not relevant to a particular research design must not be imposed unnecessarily.
All manuscripts must demonstrate methodological transparency, analytical rigor, and compliance with applicable research ethics standards.
e. Results and Discussion
The Results and Discussion section must present the research findings and their scholarly interpretation in an integrated, systematic, and critical manner.
In accordance with the journal's Author Guidelines, results and discussion must not be separated into independent sections or subsections. Each principal finding must be accompanied by its relevant analysis and scholarly discussion.
Reviewers should assess whether the findings are supported by sufficient empirical, statistical, documentary, historical, textual, or theoretical evidence, as appropriate to the research design.
The discussion must critically interpret the findings, compare them with relevant previous studies, engage with appropriate theoretical or conceptual frameworks, and explain their scholarly significance.
Reviewers should evaluate whether the discussion identifies meaningful relationships, patterns, similarities, differences, contradictions, or developments within the investigated phenomena.
For Review Articles, the discussion must provide critical literature synthesis rather than merely summarizing previous publications.
For Case Studies, the discussion must connect case-specific findings with broader theoretical, institutional, social, cultural, economic, or political perspectives.
For Literary Studies, the discussion must present original textual interpretations supported by relevant literary evidence and appropriate analytical frameworks.
The discussion should clearly explain the manuscript's theoretical, empirical, methodological, social, cultural, historical, economic, political, or practical implications for Social Sciences and Humanities.
Manuscripts that merely describe research findings without critical interpretation or meaningful scholarly discussion should be recommended for substantive revision.
f. Conclusions
The Conclusions section must directly address the research objectives and accurately synthesize the principal findings.
Reviewers should assess whether the conclusions demonstrate the manuscript's original scholarly contribution and explain the significance of the findings within the relevant field of Social Sciences and Humanities.
Conclusions must be consistent with the evidence presented in the Results and Discussion section and should not introduce new findings, unsupported generalizations, or claims beyond the scope of the research.
The conclusions should be concise, substantive, and academically meaningful rather than merely repeating the abstract or summarizing the discussion.
g. References
Reviewers must evaluate the relevance, accuracy, completeness, academic quality, and consistency of all references.
In accordance with the journal's Author Guidelines, each manuscript must include at least 20 references, with at least 80% consisting of scholarly journal articles.
The remaining references may consist of relevant academic books. Only scholarly journal articles and books are permitted in the reference list.
Authors are encouraged to prioritize recent journal articles, particularly those published within the preceding five years, while retaining relevant foundational scholarly works when necessary.
All citations and references must follow the American Psychological Association (APA) Sixth Edition style.
Book references must include the city of publication and the publisher's name.
Reviewers should ensure that every reference listed in the manuscript is appropriately cited in the text and that every in-text citation to a journal article or book corresponds accurately to an entry in the reference list.
References must be directly relevant to the manuscript's theoretical framework, research objectives, methodology, findings, and scholarly discussion.
Unverifiable, irrelevant, inaccurate, or improperly cited references should be identified for correction.
h. Academic Writing and Manuscript Organization
The manuscript must demonstrate clarity, coherence, logical organization, academic precision, and appropriate scholarly language.
Reviewers should assess whether the arguments are systematically developed, terminology is used consistently, and the manuscript maintains a clear connection between its research objectives, methodology, findings, discussion, and conclusions.
All manuscripts must follow the journal's required IMRAD structure, consisting of Introduction, Method, integrated Results and Discussion, Conclusions, and References.
The manuscript must comply with the journal's formatting requirements and official article template.
The total manuscript length must not exceed 8,000 words, excluding the reference list, table contents, and figures. The word count includes the abstract, main text, footnotes, and table and figure captions.
Reviewers should identify unnecessary repetition, unsupported statements, ambiguous arguments, excessive descriptive content, and other issues that may reduce the manuscript's academic quality.
3. Reviewer Responsibilities and Publication Ethics
Reviewers must maintain confidentiality, independence, fairness, impartiality, and objectivity throughout the evaluation process.
All manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential scholarly documents and must not be disclosed, reproduced, distributed, or used for personal or professional advantage without appropriate authorization.
Reviewers must disclose any actual or potential conflicts of interest and decline assignments when their independence or impartiality cannot be ensured.
Manuscripts must be evaluated exclusively on academic merit, methodological quality, scholarly originality, analytical rigor, and relevance to the journal's Focus and Scope.
Reviewers must not discriminate against authors based on nationality, institutional affiliation, gender, religious background, personal relationships, or other considerations unrelated to scholarly quality.
Any suspected plagiarism, data fabrication, falsification, duplicate publication, citation manipulation, unethical research practices, or other forms of academic misconduct must be reported confidentially to the editorial team.
Reviewer comments must be constructive, respectful, evidence-based, and focused on improving the manuscript's scholarly quality.
Reviewers should provide specific recommendations that enable authors to understand identified weaknesses and make appropriate academic revisions.
4. Review Recommendations and Editorial Decisions
Following the evaluation, reviewers should provide clear, comprehensive, and academically justified comments and recommend one of the following outcomes:
a. Accept Submission
The manuscript meets the journal's academic, methodological, ethical, and formatting standards and is considered suitable for publication without substantive revisions.
b. Minor Revisions
The manuscript demonstrates sufficient scholarly merit but requires limited improvements, such as clarification of arguments, correction of references, refinement of academic language, or minor adjustments to the presentation and interpretation of findings.
c. Major Revisions
The manuscript demonstrates publication potential but requires substantial improvements in its theoretical framework, research methodology, data analysis, interpretation of findings, critical discussion, scholarly contribution, or overall academic presentation.
d. Decline Submission
The manuscript contains fundamental deficiencies in originality, methodological rigor, academic significance, research ethics, scholarly contribution, or relevance to the journal's Focus and Scope that cannot reasonably be addressed through revision.
Reviewer recommendations are advisory and must be supported by clear academic reasoning.
The final decision regarding manuscript acceptance, revision, or rejection rests with the Editor-in-Chief of Ganaya: Jurnal Ilmu Sosial dan Humaniora, taking into consideration the reviewers' recommendations, the manuscript's academic quality, and compliance with the journal's editorial and publication standards.
When necessary, the editorial team may request additional expert evaluations to ensure fair and academically justified publication decisions.
5. Review Timeline and Final Evaluation
Reviewers are generally expected to complete their evaluations within two weeks of accepting the review assignment.
Reviewers who anticipate delays or encounter circumstances that may affect the quality or impartiality of their evaluation must promptly notify the editorial team.
Authors receiving revision requests must address reviewers' comments systematically and submit revised manuscripts within the deadlines established by the journal.
The standard revision periods are generally as follows:
a. Minor Revisions: Authors are expected to submit revised manuscripts within two weeks of receiving the editorial decision.
b. Major Revisions: Authors are normally granted up to four weeks to complete substantial revisions.
Revised manuscripts must be accompanied by a detailed response letter explaining how each reviewer comment has been addressed and identifying the corresponding changes made to the manuscript.
Manuscripts undergoing major revisions may be returned to the original reviewers for further evaluation. Minor revisions may be assessed directly by the handling editor when additional external review is unnecessary.
Final acceptance is determined by the Editor-in-Chief based on the manuscript's academic quality, relevance to the journal's Focus and Scope, compliance with publication ethics, and satisfactory completion of the editorial and peer-review processes.
Accepted manuscripts proceed to copyediting, reference verification, layout preparation, proofreading, and publication in accordance with the journal's editorial policies and publication schedule.
Through these guidelines, Ganaya: Jurnal Ilmu Sosial dan Humaniora seeks to maintain a credible, consistent, ethical, and academically rigorous peer-review process that supports the advancement of Social Sciences and Humanities scholarship.
Reviewer Feedback Submission
Reviewers are encouraged to provide detailed comments directly within the manuscript using the commenting feature in Microsoft Word (Review > New Comment).
Comments should clearly identify sections requiring improvement, explain the academic or methodological concerns, and provide constructive recommendations for revision.
The reviewed manuscript containing comments should be submitted through the journal's online editorial management system, together with the reviewer's evaluation and publication recommendation.
