Screening Process

On the receipt of draft, the Managing Editor shall allocate the work to Editorial Team. Each draft received by the Editorial Team shall be screened thoroughly in 8 stages:

1.Stage 1/Preliminary Screening: Initially, an internal screening process shall be carried out to ensure that the submitted drafts align with the general appropriateness of the work and are conceptually and theoretically sound. During this phase, the Editorial Team verifies that the drafts adhere to basic requirements, including citation style, formatting, and word limits. The preliminary screening shall be done by the Editorial Team.

2.Stage 2/Plagiarism Check: Following the initial screening, the submitted manuscript shall be subjected to a plagiarism check, with a maximum permissible similarity index of 15%. This requirement must be complied by the Authors before making their draft submission. The plagiarism check and processing of the reports shall be done by the Editorial Team.

3.Stage 3/Peer-Review Stage: Upon successful completion of the above two phases, the approved drafts are then forwarded to an expert for a blind peer review (External). The expert shall assess the drafts on various criteria, including topic relevance, comprehensiveness, original contribution to existing knowledge, language usage, and overall coherence. The resulting review report shall subsequently be shared with the respective author for their consideration.

4.Stage 4/Final Screening (Post Blind Peer-Review): Once the report of External Peer Review Expert is received, the Editorial Team shall proceed as follows:

• • Acceptance by Expert: Process for final filtering and selection.
• • Rejection by Expert: Intimate the Author about rejection.
• • Revision by Expert: Intimate the author about Expert’s comments and observations, and subsequent submission within 2 weeks. In case, revised draft is not received, it shall be deemed that the paper has been withdrawn by the Author.

5.Stage 5/Final Vetting: The Student Committee will forward the finalised (accepted) papers to the Faculty Editors, who shall conduct the vetting of the submitted papers and highlight any formatting, citation, footnoting/reference or any other content related issues and report them to the Managing Editor for finalisation.

6.Stage 6/Review and Shortlisting: The Managing Editor shall conduct a final review of the finalised papers. The review shall be exhaustive and critical. Thereafter, prepare a list of papers to be placed before the Board for final selection and publication. The list shall be submitted to the Editor-in-Chief in a sealed envelope.

7.Stage 7/Board Meeting and Final Selection: The Editor-in-Chief shall convene a meeting of the Board where the final drafts approved by the Editorial Team shall be placed for final selection and publication. The decision shall be taken by consensus. The Board may refuse to publish a paper at any stage of screening.

8.Stage 8/Publication: Once the final list is prepared and approved by the Editorial Board, the Editor-in-Chief shall cause the selected papers to be published in the HILSR L. Rev. on its website.

The whole review process may take a minimum of at least 6 to 8 months depending on the influx of submissions. The Authors will be intimated at the end of each stage if modifications are required in the original draft. In the matters of final selection and publication of paper, the decision of the Board shall be final.