The peer review system, with all its defects and advantages, is the system used to maintain the integrity and high quality that readers and authors of the Nexus Network Journal have come to expect. To help authors evaluate their own papers before they are submitted to the NNJ and sent for review, we have posted a set of characteristics that can contribute to a paper's acceptance, and a second list of characteristics that often lead to rejection.

In general, the Nexus Network Journal considers papers that conform to established and respected, international practices in the fields of architectural history, architectural theory, design computing, design mathematics and applied geometry and the history and philosophy of science. Notwithstanding this general description, the following is useful advice for both authors and referees.

A paper is most likely to be accepted by the Nexus Network Journal if:

• its content combines both architecture and mathematics in a meaningful way.
• it describes a new insight into the historic, current or future relationship between architecture and mathematics.
• it offers a new interpretation of architecture using a mathematical method.
• either it uses an established method or conceptual framework which is fully referenced, rigorously applied and correctly interpreted, or it develops a new method which is well argued and comprehensively demonstrated.
• it is structured to include sections which describe the aims, significance, limitations, methods, results and conclusions or implications of the research.
• the authors present their results in an unbiased, logical and critical (questioning) way.
• it fully and correctly acknowledges past research which has been undertaken on the same topic and research which has been previously published in Nexus Network Journal to contextualise the new work for regular readers.
• it fully and correctly acknowledges any quoted material or images taken from other sources.
• it is written in fluent, grammatically correct English and conforms to the Nexus Network Journal template and standards set out in the guide for authors.

A paper is most likely to be rejected by the Nexus Network Journal if:

• its content is either only mathematical or only architectural and it does not make a clear and valid connection between the two disciplines.
• it is poorly written, difficult to understand, does not contain enough information to assess, or does not use and follow the Nexus Network Journal template and guide for authors.
• It does not contain any demonstrable insight or original outcome which is valuable to the field.
• it does not contextualise the research using both recent and original references which are relevant to its content, method and conclusion.
• it does not describe its method or conceptual framework, it does not demonstrate why this method is reasonable, or it draws unreasonable or incorrect conclusions from the method.
• it contains quoted material that is not correctly referenced, or is heavily paraphrased from a published paper by another author, or it contains large sections which have previously been published by the author.
• it is derived from large sections or subsections of a dissertation which have not been completely revised to conform to the journal’s standards or have not been re-written to adequately explain the material.
• it relies on largely unpublished or ‘in print’ material to make its case.
• it is only a literature review.