Reviewing

Human responsibility and authorship

Assistive tools may be used responsibly and transparently. AI cannot be an author or assume research accountability. Human authors remain fully responsible for accuracy, originality, source verification, usage rights, and ethical compliance.

Disclosure in the manuscript

Disclose at submission and in the article the tool, provider, version or date of use, purpose, affected parts, and human verification. Writing or translation assistance is described in a disclosure or acknowledgements statement. AI used in data collection, analysis, or figure generation is described in the methods with enough detail for assessment and, where possible, reproduction. Substantive generative assistance must be disclosed; conventional non-generative spelling checks alone do not require a statement.

Unacceptable uses

Fabricating data, participants, findings, or references, concealing image manipulation, or presenting generated material as genuine observational evidence is prohibited. Synthetic images or materials must be clearly labelled and methodologically justified. A tool’s answer is not a substitute for verifying the original scholarly source.

Confidentiality and data protection

Participant data, manuscripts, and protected or confidential material must not be sent to external services without a lawful basis, appropriate permissions, and safeguards. Check tool terms and reuse rights. AI does not remove ethics approval or informed-consent obligations.

Reviewers and editors

Unpublished manuscripts, review reports, and confidential data must not be uploaded to unapproved external AI tools. Peer-review responsibility and final editorial decisions must not be delegated to AI. Any editorially permitted assistive use must preserve confidentiality and be disclosed to the handling editor.

Verification and breaches

The journal may request explanations or relevant records, require revised disclosure, reject a manuscript, or correct the record according to evidence. AI detection scores alone do not establish misconduct. Authors may respond under the ethics and complaints policies. Enquiries: info@hnjournal.net.

Screening before peer review

The editorial team checks scope, submission requirements, originality, and ethical compliance. It may request missing information or reject a manuscript with reasons before review. Submissions are not automatically sent to reviewers.

Review model and number of reviewers

The journal uses double-anonymous peer review for research articles: author identities are withheld from reviewers and reviewer identities from authors. The subject or references may sometimes allow identity to be inferred. Articles passing initial screening are sent to at least two independent reviewers with relevant expertise. Authors submit a separate title page and an anonymized manuscript, which the editorial team checks before review. Editorial correspondence and announcements are not peer-reviewed research; material types are identified when published.

Reviewer selection and competing interests

The editor verifies expertise, contact details, and independence. Financial, professional, and personal relationships, recent collaboration, academic supervision, and competition that could affect impartiality must be disclosed. Reviewers and editors recuse themselves when conflicted; disclosure alone does not justify continuing. Authors must not suggest fabricated reviewer identities or control reviewer selection.

Assessment criteria

Assessment covers originality, scholarly contribution, clarity of the problem and objectives, relevant literature, suitability of design, sampling, instruments and analysis, reliability of findings, evidence supporting conclusions, limitations, language, referencing, and research ethics. Reviewers must not demand citations without a scholarly reason.

Confidentiality and tools

Manuscripts and reports are confidential and must not be shared or exploited before publication. A reviewer may not involve another person without editorial permission. Confidential manuscripts or data must not be uploaded to unapproved external AI tools. Responsibility for evaluation and decisions must not be delegated to AI.

Reports revisions and disagreement

Authors receive constructive professional comments and submit point-by-point responses and revised manuscripts. Further review may be requested. When reports differ, the Editor-in-Chief assesses their scholarly reasoning and may seek a third review. The final decision remains editorial and is not an automatic vote.

Final decision-making responsibility

Editor-in-Chief: Dr. Ibrahim Abdelrahman Ahmed. The Editor-in-Chief makes the final decision to accept, request revisions, or reject, considering the review reports, manuscript quality, and compliance with journal policies. Reviewers provide scholarly recommendations and do not replace editorial decision-making. If the Editor-in-Chief is an author or has a conflict of interest, they recuse themselves from access to the evaluation, handling, and decision-making. A qualified independent editor without a conflict handles the manuscript and makes the final decision. The publisher, fees, and advertising do not influence scholarly decisions.

Editorial submissions and special issues

Submissions by editors and board members and articles in special issues follow the same screening and review standards. Editors do not handle their own or otherwise conflicted submissions. Guest editors’ names, institutional affiliations, countries, and contact details are published on the special-issue page. The Editor-in-Chief retains oversight, with recusal whenever conflicted.

Timelines fees and appeals

Deadlines are communicated according to the manuscript, reviewer availability, and revision needs. No fixed review duration or outcome is guaranteed. Publication fees are requested after scholarly acceptance and do not affect decisions. Reasoned appeals with evidence may be sent to info@hnjournal.net and are reviewed by an editor independent of the decision being appealed.

Final publication requirements

Every scholarly article and its PDF must include an accurate English title and a comprehensible English abstract, regardless of the main text language. All authors’ names, institutional affiliations, and countries must also be provided in Roman script, with the corresponding author’s email, on the article page, in the PDF, and in every published version. References must have bibliographic information in Roman script. Original-language entries may be retained with an English translation or Roman-script transliteration immediately after each entry, preserving accurate metadata without inventing missing details.