Review Process

Editors assignment

Upon submission, the editors-in-chief assign two editors to the paper (see the Submission Information for how authors can suggest specific editors), called the handling editors of the submission. These two editors are in charge of leading the editorial process of the submission, as explained next.

Editorial process

TheoretiCS follows a two-phase peer-reviewing process. Final decisions are made collectively by the editorial board at the end of each stage (excluding members having a conflict of interest with the submission).

Phase 1. In the first phase, the handling editors, after seeking the opinion of external experts, decide whether a submission qualifies for a thorough phase 2 review. 

The main criteria in phase 1 are the significance and lasting value of the results, the belief that the exposition is of high quality or will be after revision, and the availability of expert reviewers. Reviewers for this phase are asked to explicitly state whether they believe that the contribution of the submission is among the strongest contributions in its area in the last year or so. 

Once the handling editors have agreed upon a recommendation for this first phase, it is communicated to the other members of the editorial board, who have a chance to give their opinion about the recommendation. If the editorial board agrees, editors-in-chief, who have the final say in the decision, implement the recommendation (rejecting, or moving to phase 2) and communicate this to the authors. 

TheoretiCS strives to conclude the first phase of reviewing and notify the authors about its result within three months (see how we did).

Phase 2. In the second phase, handling editors invite (possibly different) external reviewers to check the validity of the claims and to make suggestions to achieve a presentation of high quality. Authors can be asked by the handling editors to revise their submission accordingly. Submissions that qualify for the second phase are expected to eventually be published, unless significant issues are detected or the desired quality of exposition is not achieved.

Similarly to the first phase, handling editors must reach an agreement to make a recommendation. The handling editors final recommendation is then communicated to the other members of the editorial board, who have a chance to give their opinion about the recommendation. If the editorial board agrees, editors-in-chief, who have the final say in the decision, implement the recommendation (accepting, or rejecting) and communicate this to the authors.   

After acceptance

The acceptance of the paper will be noted on the TheoretiCS website as soon as the authors are notified (see coming soon). Following acceptance, authors will be asked to provide their LaTeX source code incorporating any final recommendations from the editors and reviewers. TheoretiCS layout editors will port the paper to the TheoretiCS LaTeX style and authors will be asked to approve the final version. Authors will also be asked to provide their arXiv paper password to allow TheoretiCS to update the arXiv record to the final published version.

Once the final version is available on arXiv, the paper will be published on the TheoretiCS website the following day. Each paper is assigned a DOI and published sequentially in the current annual volume; papers are available immediately upon publication, without waiting for the volume to be complete.