Publication Ethics

Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement

The efficient publishing of any peer-reviewed article requires a standard and ethical behavior from all the parties involved viz., authors, reviewers and editorial board. Journal of Phytology strongly believes and is committed to maintaining the standard ethical recommendations from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and Code of Conduct guidelines available at www.publicationethics.org.

ETHICAL EXPECTATIONS

Authorship Criteria

In a published paper, the credit for authorship should be based on substantial contributions in conducting the study and preparation of the manuscript. Co-PI in a project or Co-Supervisor in a Master's or PhD work is insufficient to claim authorship. The author's order of articles should be based on the relative contribution to the research.

Authors should include the “Author contribution statement” in their manuscripts. The statement should be placed at the end of the manuscript (after discussion/conclusion and before acknowledgement), and should specify the type of contribution made by every co-author in the manuscript, to promote transparency.

• The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that the descriptions are accurate and that all authors agree.
• Authors may have contributed in multiple roles.

Sample Author contribution statement

Author A: Conceptualization, Data curation, Investigation, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft. Author B: Investigation, Methodology. Author C: Formal analysis, Validation, Visualization. Author D: Funding acquisition, Supervision, Writing – review & editing. All authors approved the final manuscript.

Click Here to know the Contributor Role Taxonomy (CRediT)

Before submitting the manuscript to the journal, the corresponding author should seek permission from all co-authors of the study. After final acceptance, it will not be possible to change the author order.

Authors Responsibilities

• Authors are responsible for the content and originality of the submitted paper (See Journal of Phytology Policy on Plagiarism).
• Authors should take consent from all co-authors before submission.
• It is assumed that the paper is solely submitted to this journal and not under consideration in any other journal.
• If taken from already published sources, all materials included should be acknowledged and properly cited. Permission letter is needed from previous authors/publisher in cased of already published figures or tables or data.
• The raw data of the reported study should be retained with the author records, if case any query arise, corresponding author will be responsible to explain.
• All funding sources should be acknowledged.
• If needed, Ethical Approvals from concerned authorities for conducting the studies should be submitted.
• Authors should declare any potential conflicts of interest

Reviewers Responsibilities

• Reviewers should evaluate the manuscript based on the scientific merit in an impartial and unbiased way.
• They should particularly comment on the novelty and originality of the work.
• They should evaluate the article’s readers interest and potential impact on the community
• They should evaluate the suitability of the methodology described, study design etc.,
• They should complete the review process in a timely manner.
• The information related to the article under review should be kept confidential
• The reviewer should not retain or copy the manuscript.
• Any potential conflicts of interest should be communicated to the Editor
• The review process should be based on fairness policy in intellectual and scientific contents regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, citizenry nor political values of author(s).

Editors Responsibilities

• The editor should make any decision solely based on intellectual content and scientific merits and should not be biased.
• The editor should act in a balanced, objective and fair way, without discrimination on grounds of gender, sexual orientation, religious or political beliefs, ethnic or geographical origin of the authors.
• The information related to the article under review should be kept confidential
• Follow up with reviewers to finish the timely review of all manuscripts.
• Solve the issues with authors/reviewers, if any misconduct is suspected
• Responsibility and authority to reject/accept an article
• The editor should treat allegations of plagiarism seriously and should reserve the right to reject papers if there is doubt whether appropriate procedures have been followed.