Before you begin your review, it is recommended that you read these ASME Review Guidelines. It is the intent of ASME to present and publish technical papers of high quality. To achieve this end, thorough and critical reviews are being requested from you and others who are competent and knowledgeable. ASME requests your assistance in evaluating papers submitted for presentation at ASME conferences and publication in its proceedings. Your opinions will be held in confidence and your efforts are appreciated.
The Review Process
The purpose of review is to determine whether a paper is acceptable for publication, needs revision, or should be rejected. Recommendations must be supported by specific and critical comments. Reviewing is a confidential process involving only the reviewer, program-making agency, and the editorial department. Papers recommended for publication should be of high quality and of current technical interest. If rejection is recommended, keep in mind that you should state reasons in a professionally appropriate manner.
Reviewing Technical Papers
Reviewing technical papers is an intellectual process that includes both subjective and objective elements. The reviewer must eliminate any personal bias toward the author or the subject matter. At the same time, the paper must be evaluated in terms of the reviewer’s own experience in and knowledge of a specialized technical field. This involves more than checking a list of possible impressions, for the reviewer will almost always have some reactions that cannot be anticipated in a formal review form.
This Review Form has been designed to enable the reviewer to evaluate the merits of the paper and fit the evaluation into recommendations conforming to ASME practices of technical paper presentation and publication.
Definitions Relating to Publication
Prior publication refers to the reproduction and distribution of a paper in a manner such that it has been made available to the engineering profession and can be obtained in the normal process of a literature search.
An acceptable technical paper is one that is technically sound, free from personalities and bias (especially of a commercial nature), one in which the author supplies information never before published in a form readily available to the public, or adds a new concept or development to existing technical knowledge. The definition should be construed to include comprehensive reviews to past and present engineering practice.
Unacceptable technical papers are those having an obvious sales approach to technical problems, those based upon fallacious or dubious engineering analysis, and those whose approach is superficially descriptive of widely accepted engineering practice.
A review paper is one in which an author surveys a specific subject or technical area and brings together relevant published information in such a manner that the reader may readily become familiar with the state of the art at the time the review was prepared. Alternately, such a paper may present information from unfamiliar fields of science and from other engineering specialties. A review must relate itself through bibliographical references to pertinent technical literature.