Review Process (commres-review-process)

Knowing how CR screens and decides lets you pre-empt the failure modes before submitting. CR is double-anonymized and is a quantitative, theory-testing journal, so it screens for both fit and methodological rigor.

When to trigger

• Before submitting, to stress-test fit, rigor, and anonymization
• Deciding whether the contribution is quantitative and theory-testing enough for CR
• Interpreting a decision letter and setting expectations
• Understanding what reviewers are instructed to weigh

How CR review works

1. Double-anonymized. Reviewers do not know the authors and authors do not know reviewers. Anonymize the main document and supplemental materials; write self-citations in the third person (see commres-submission).
2. Editorial screening first. Manuscripts that are off-scope (qualitative/interpretive for a quantitative venue), descriptive, atheoretical, or methodologically weak may be declined without full review. CR screens for a tested communication mechanism, not a platform description.
3. External review. Manuscripts that pass go to expert referees under the double-anonymized model.
4. Two independent reviews to advance. CR requires two independent reviews to back a Revise or Accept decision (检索于 2026-06；以官网为准) — a single enthusiastic reviewer is not enough, so the paper must satisfy more than one expert at once.
5. Decision categories: typically reject, revise and resubmit (major or minor), or accept — the final call is the editor's, weighing the reviews.

Open practices in review

• A data-availability statement is expected; preregistration (if any) should be noted in the cover letter; open-materials/data claims must be deposited to be credited (see commres-transparency-and-data).

Shape the paper to pass

• Make the tested mechanism explicit (avoids the "descriptive / atheoretical" screen-out).
• Defend measurement validity and identification up front — CR reviewers probe both.
• Engage the relevant empirical literatures, including across communication areas.
• Clear ethics/IRB and human-subjects compliance.
• Write to two expert reviewers at once: anticipate the strongest objection of each and answer it in the design.

Two gates, two failure modes (calibration anchor, hedged)

Gate	Who decides	What kills a paper here	Pre-empt by
Editorial fit/rigor screen	handling editor / EIC	qualitative for the venue, descriptive, atheoretical, weak measurement	front-loading a tested mechanism + valid measures
External expert review	independent referees (≥2 to advance)	weak theory advance, shaky measurement, no mechanism, CMV/confound	answering each referee's strongest objection in the design

The fit screen is fast; external review is slow and substantive. Referee count, decision wording, and timeline are volatile — confirm against the journal's current submission guidelines (待核实).

Worked micro-example: reading a "major revisions" signal (illustrative)

A "major revisions" letter says "the framing effect is plausible but the mediation is not convincing." This is an external-review objection (the tested mechanism), not a fit screen-out — the editor already judged the topic and design CR-relevant. The path is a sharper mediation test (manipulate or better-measure the mediator; report bootstrap CIs), not more covariates. Reading it as a call for controls is the classic misread that loses a winnable R&R — and because CR needs two reviewers on side, you must convince the skeptical second reviewer, not only the encouraging first.

Anti-patterns

• Submitting a qualitative or descriptive paper to a quantitative venue (fit screen-out)
• Ignoring measurement-validity or common-method-variance concerns reviewers will raise
• Expecting acceptance without revision — most accepted papers go through at least one R&R
• Satisfying one reviewer while ignoring the second (CR needs two on side to advance)
• Leaving identifiers in supplemental materials (breaks double-anonymization)

Review-risk pass for Communication Research

Treat this skill as an executable review pass, not a prose hint. First lock the communication process, the measured constructs, the study design, and the inferential claim; then judge whether the manuscript answers CR's real reader: a quantitatively trained communication scientist who weighs theory, measurement validity, identification, and effect interpretation.

• Do the pass: Turn probable reviewer objections into a ledger with response evidence, manuscript location, and which of the two reviewers each must convince.
• Return a ledger: give claim / evidence / risk / manuscript location rows so the next agent edits rather than rediscovers the issue.
• Sibling guard: Journal of Communication (all-paradigm), Human Communication Research (interpersonal), New Media & Society (digital). If a sibling owns the contribution, re-route before polishing format.
• Stop condition: do not give submission-ready advice until resources/official-source-map.md has been checked and the manuscript has one concrete fix for the largest venue-specific risk.

Output format

【Fit check】quantitative, theory-testing? any red flags?
【Mechanism】tested mechanism explicit enough to clear the screen? [Y/N]
【Measurement】validity + CMV defended? [Y/N]
【Anonymization】main doc + supplements clean? [Y/N]
【Two-reviewer test】would two independent experts back R&R? [Y/N]
【Realistic outcome】reject / R&R (major/minor) / (rare) accept
【Next】commres-submission (or commres-rebuttal if decided)

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — double-anonymized review, two-review requirement, decision categories