THE EDITORIAL AND PEER REVIEW PROCESS 

As a general rule, the receipt of a manuscript will be acknowledged immediately after submission, and authors will be provided with a manuscript number for future correspondence. If such an acknowledgment is not received, the author should contact the Editorial Office.

Manuscripts are reviewed by the Editorial Office to ensure that the submission contains all parts. The submission will not be accepted if the author has not supplied all parts of the manuscript as outlined in this document. If the manuscript does not appear to be of sufficient merit or is not appropriate for the Journal, then the manuscript will be rejected promptly without review.

Manuscripts that appear meritorious and appropriate for the Journal are reviewed by at least two Editorial Board members or expert consultants. Acupuncture Research follows a double-blinded peer review process. Authors may submit a list in their cover letter of reviewers who they wish to review or not to review their manuscript. However, the actual peer reviewers invited will remain anonymous and may or may not be the reviewers suggested by the authors as the selection of reviewers is at the sole discretion of Acupuncture Research Editors. The editors and reviewers will not disclose any information about a manuscript or its review to anyone except the manuscript's corresponding author.

The corresponding author will usually be notified within 8 weeks of whether the submitted article is accepted for publication, rejected, or subject to revision before acceptance (however, do note that delays are sometimes unavoidable). If revisions are required, authors are asked to return a revised manuscript to the Editorial Office within 30 days. Please notify the Editorial Office in advance if additional time is needed or if you choose not to submit a revised manuscript.