est-review-process

Review Process (est-review-process)

Knowing how ES&T screens and decides lets you pre-empt the failure modes before submitting. ES&T editors desk-decline a significant fraction of submissions before any external review, so the manuscript must clear the editorial bar on significance and fit first.

When to trigger

• Before submitting, to stress-test against desk-decline grounds
• Interpreting a decision letter and setting expectations
• Understanding what expert reviewers are likely to weigh
• Deciding whether the work is urgent enough for ES&T Letters instead

How ES&T review works

1. Editorial screening first. The Editor-in-Chief / executive editors screen submissions; a significant fraction are declined without external review when significance, fit, novelty, or rigor fall short.
2. Expert external review. Manuscripts that pass are sent to expert reviewers — typically three — who assess within a few weeks. Reviewer identities are kept anonymous; the author-blinding model is not stated as a fixed rule (待核实).
3. Editor decision. Associate editors and the editorial leadership make the call; typical outcomes are reject / major or minor revision / accept. Decisions are at editor discretion, informed by the reviews.
4. Author input. Authors suggest ≥4 non-conflicted reviewers and may note non-preferred ones (see est-cover-letter).
5. Integrity checks. Submissions are screened for plagiarism with iThenticate/CrossCheck and for ethics/COI compliance.

Shape the paper to pass

• Make environmental significance explicit and early (avoids the top desk-decline reason).
• Engage the relevant literature so novelty is obvious (see est-literature-positioning).
• Pre-empt the analytical objection: report QA/QC, uncertainty, and a closed mass balance.
• Match urgency to venue: genuinely time-sensitive, high-impact short results may fit ES&T Letters.
• Clear ethics/safety/COI and have the SI + data deposit ready (reviewers see the SI).

Desk-reject triggers and where they get fixed upstream

A significant fraction of ES&T submissions never reach reviewers. Each common desk-decline ground maps to an earlier skill — fix it before the editor sees the paper:

Desk-reject ground	Signal the editor reads	Fix it in
No environmental significance	"clean lab result, no real-system relevance"	est-topic-selection
Novelty is incremental occurrence	"another dataset, no new insight"	est-literature-positioning
Out of scope for ES&T	better suited to a specialist title	est-topic-selection
Wrong article type / over caps	exceeds word/figure budget	est-submission
Missing TOC graphic or SI	submission incomplete	est-figures-and-tables, est-reporting-and-reproducibility

Worked micro-example (illustrative — predicting a decision on an LCA paper)

Stress-testing a GAC-vs-IX LCA before submission (illustrative reasoning):

• Significance: present — links treatment choice to climate burden, a sustainability question ES&T centers. Clears the first desk axis.
• Novelty risk: if the LCA merely re-runs a standard inventory, a reviewer flags "method applied, no new insight." Strengthen by surfacing a non-obvious trade-off (e.g., regeneration energy dominating the GAC footprint — illustrative).
• Rigor: Monte Carlo uncertainty reported, functional unit stated, characterization factors sourced — survives the analytical reviewer.
• Realistic outcome: major revision is the modal result for a sound-but-improvable paper; expect asks for sensitivity on the electricity grid mix and clearer environmental implications. Plan for it rather than reading "major revision" as near-acceptance.

The lesson: walk each desk axis yourself first; the editor will, and an unaddressed axis is a decline before any reviewer weighs in.

Anti-patterns

• A clean-but-incremental result with no significance argument (desk decline)
• Ignoring an obvious related literature so novelty looks thin
• Hoping reviewers overlook missing blanks/recoveries or an unclosed mass balance
• Sending non-urgent work to ES&T Letters, or urgent work buried in a long Research Article
• Treating a "major revision" as an acceptance

Output format

【Desk-screen check】significance / fit / novelty / rigor — any red flags?
【Significance】explicit and early? [Y/N]
【Literature engaged】novelty obvious? [Y/N]
【Analytical defense】QA/QC + uncertainty + mass balance ready? [Y/N]
【Venue】ES&T vs ES&T Letters
【Realistic outcome】reject / revision / (rare) accept
【Next】est-submission (or est-revision-and-rebuttal on a decision)

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — editor screening, reviewer count, decision flow, integrity checks