Guidelines for Reviewers

Acta Dermato-Venereologica uses a single-anonymous review (also called single-blind peer review). This means that the reviewers’ names are not disclosed to the author, but the reviewer can see who the author is.

Competing interests

As a reviewer of Acta Dermato-Venereologica you are expected to uphold the integrity of the peer review process, and hence a careful consideration of competing interests is important. As competing interests may introduce a perceived or actual bias in the peer review process they can compromise a study at a later stage, even if the study is perfectly valid. Competing interests can be financial or non-financial and they can be of a professional or personal character. They arise in relationship to an organization or another person.

If you believe that you have competing interests, please contact the editors. The editors may ask you to review anyway, or decide to find a different reviewer. In either case it is important that the editor understands the nature of the competing interests, and can account for them when evaluating reviewer feedback.

Reviewer assessment

We ask the reviewers to assess the quality, validity, and relevance of the manuscript at hand, and to motivate any major criticism conveyed to the authors. Your focus should thus be on the originality, presentation, and relevance to the readership of the journal and also on the accuracy of the methodology. Please provide as detailed comments as possible, which are suitable for sending to the author. These can be used to make constructive suggestions, seek clarifications, or ask for further elaboration.

Please note that Acta Dermato-Venereologica prefers succinct reports without repetitions in Introduction, Results and Discussion. We appreciate if you can also pay attention to the title of the manuscript, which is very important; it should be informative without being too long. The same goes for the abstract, as many readers will only read the title and abstract.

We do not expect or request detailed language checking, but appreciate information on the quality of the English language, especially where the technical meaning is unclear. If revisions are needed, we may return the paper for correction. The quality and necessity of figures/photos should preferably be commented on as well as the need for Tables.

If you struggle to meet the deadline given, please let the editorial office know, so they can inform the author and update the system.

Use of large language models

As of February 15, 2023 submitting authors may use large language models (LLMs) including Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer (ChatGPT, OpenAI, San Francisco, CA, USA). All invited reviewers should pay close attention to any redundant textbook style information. Submitting authors must feel safe that their unpublished work is not uploaded in LLMs. Therefore, due to potential data privacy issues, reviewers of ActaDV must never use (i.e. copy and paste) any content from unpublished manuscripts provided to them into any LLM. However, reviewers are free to use LLMs to improve language.

For Editorial guidance on the use of LLMs please read this editorial published in ActaDV.

Specific comments for case reports

Please note that only reports of high originality will be considered for publication as full reports (with abstract). Most case reports should, if accepted, be presented as Short Communications (without abstract). A Short Communication should fit within 2 typeset pages, including figures and tables. However, additional supplementary material may be accepted. Occasionally, a case report with little news value but a high educational value may be accepted as Quiz.