Criteria for Acceptance and Rejection

The Dyke 

To maintain high academic and editorial standards, all submissions to The Dyke are evaluated against strict criteria during peer and editorial review. Final decisions are made by the editorial team based on reviewers’ recommendations, adherence to journal scope, and overall quality.

Criteria for Acceptance

Manuscripts may be accepted when they meet the following conditions:

Relevance to Journal Scope

• Clearly aligned with The Dyke’s interdisciplinary focus and areas of interest (social sciences, arts, humanities, business sciences, education, etc.)

Originality and Contribution

• Offers a novel perspective, empirical findings, or theoretical insight
• Advances knowledge or opens new lines of inquiry

Methodological Rigor

• Employs appropriate, clearly described, and replicable methods
• Demonstrates logical consistency between objectives, methodology, results, and conclusions

 Clarity and Structure

• Well-organised with coherent argumentation
• Follows the journal’s structural and formatting guidelines

Engagement with Literature

• Shows awareness of current scholarship
• Properly cites relevant sources and contributes meaningfully to ongoing debates

Ethical Compliance

• Meets research ethics standards
• Provides necessary disclosures, approvals, and consent where applicable

Language and Style

• Written in clear, professional English (UK)
• Free from grammatical and typographical errors

Criteria for Rejection

Submissions may be rejected for one or more of the following reasons:

Out of Scope

• Topic or approach does not align with the journal’s aims or disciplinary focus

 Lack of Originality

• Replicates existing work without offering new insight
• Contains redundant or previously published material

Methodological Flaws

• Weak, inappropriate, or poorly explained methods
• Inadequate or unclear data presentation

Incoherence or Poor Structure

• Unclear argument or disorganised content
• Failure to adhere to journal formatting or submission guidelines

Insufficient Engagement with Scholarship

• Limited references or lack of critical interaction with relevant literature

Ethical Concerns

• Suspected plagiarism, data manipulation, authorship disputes, or lack of ethical approval

Poor Language Quality

• Excessive grammatical issues or poor expression that hinders comprehension

Submissions that are promising but require substantial revision may receive a Revise and Resubmit decision. Final acceptance is contingent upon satisfactory revisions and editorial approval.