appeal-pr
							        Revised 06/06

                                AUTHOR APPEALS


Authors may appeal a rejection of their paper by the editors.  
In the case of a formal appeal, the paper and all relevant information, 
including the identities of the referees will be sent to a member of
the Editorial Board.  The Board member may review the case on the
existing record or may seek additional expert opinion.  The Board member
will present a signed advisory opinion to the editors, which will be
sent to authors and/or referees with the Board member's name.

If a Board member has provided a referee report on a paper prior to
appeal, another Board member must review the paper on appeal.  Authors
may suggest those Board members they feel are appropriate (or not 
appropriate) to conduct the review, but the editors are not bound 
by such suggestions.  If there is no suitable Board member available, the 
editors may appoint an appropriate scientist to consider a paper under
appeal as an ad hoc Board member.

The author of a paper that has been rejected subsequent to an Editorial
Board review may request that the case be reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief
of the APS.  This request should be addressed to the Editor, who will 
forward the entire file to the Editor-in-Chief.  Such an appeal must be
based on the fairness of the procedures followed, and must not be a request 
for another scientific review.  The questions to be answered in this review
are: Were our procedures followed appropriately and did the paper receive a 
fair hearing?  A decision by the Editor-in-Chief is the final level of 
review.