Editorial Policies

Focus and Scope

The Journal of Plant and Environment is a multidisciplinary, open access, peer-reviewed scientific journal committed to publishing original research, critical reviews, and short communications reporting theoretical, experimental, applied, and descriptive work in all aspects of botany, environmental sciences, and plant microbial science with special reference, but not limited to Pakistan.

The journal aims to serve the research community by providing a platform for researchers to publish innovative and quality research in both fundamental and applied plant and environmental studies. The journal considers submissions on plant biology (including ecology, evolution, physiology, biodiversity, systematics, development, genetics, paleobotany, structure, and function), all levels of organizations (ecosystems to molecular), ethnobotany, plant environment, Plant Pathology, plant bacteriology, plant mycology, plant virology, plant nematology, and epidemiology.

 

Section Policies

Letters to Editor

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Articles

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Review Articles

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed
 

Peer Review Process

Peer review policy is devised to ensure the validity, quality and the originality of articles submitted for publication. The said policy aimed to maintain the Journal’s highest integrity by filtering out invalid or poor-quality articles in order to support fine quality original publications. The peer-review process is based on trust and active participation of the scientific community where everyone took responsibility to act sensibly and ethically. Journal took an obligation to devise fair and transparent policies for fast track peer-review process.

Editorial board members of Journal of Plant and Environment in connection with Editor-in-Chief guarantee the ethical and honest accountability to support the researchers in publishing their original valuable research work. Flaws in the papers are communicated well and research integrity is maintained by validating the research methodology, data clarity, and final conclusions supported by data presented.

Criticism within the context of peer review is a supportive tool to improve the quality of the paper. Each manuscript submitted to Journal of Plant and Environment will be subjected to an initial quality check by the journal’s editorial office before passing it through a peer-review process. Editorial office checks the paper’s quality and ensures that the submitted article falls under the journal’s scope to go through online peer-review process. Journal follows a very vigorous double-blind review process in determining which articles are accepted and eventually being published. In order to maintain the highest of standards and transparency, authors are communicated clearly on what grounds editorial decision is made.

Once the review process is complete, the submitted article is passed to the Editor-in-Chief to make the final decision on its acceptance keeping in view the comments and remarks of at least two subject experts. The corresponding author is informed about the editorial decision through e-mail and online tracking system.

The revision should also be accompanied by a point-by-point response (Response letter) to referees explaining how the manuscript has been changed and these changes must be clear and highlighted. Constructive review and feed-back from the rewires will help the authors to improve their paper in the best possible way. The revised paper may then be sent back to the original referees or to new referees, at the editor's discretion, if needed.

It is mandatory for the corresponding author to communicate in writing if there are any competing or conflicting interests among the authors. This competing interest could be personal, financial, professional, political or religious in its nature.

Authors are encouraged to resubmit rejected articles after addressing all the valid suggestions.

When all editorial issues are resolved, the manuscript is formally accepted for publication. After acceptance, authors are sent proofs of their manuscript but only typo mistakes or errors introduced during production process or that directly compromise the scientific integrity of the paper are permitted. All corrections are approved by the production team. Journal reserves the right to make the final decision about matters of style and the size of figures.

 

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

 

Archiving

This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. More...

 

Editorial Policy

Journal of Plant and Environment is International peer-reviewed, open access, scientific journal dedicated to publish high quality reviews, research papers, and short communications in plant and environment and its related disciplines and scope of the Journal is not confined to any country or region.

Journal of Plant and Environment demands author(s) to strictly follow the ethical standards and any kind of misconduct is treated seriously. Authors are required to submit high quality and original research work that should be clear and understandable. Manuscript submitted to Journal of Plant and Environment has not been published or is not under consideration for publication in any other Journal. We also encouraged the author(s) to submit their papers that have been presented in National and International conferences (author’s guideline is mandatory to follow before submission).

Corresponding author is responsible to make sure that there is no conflict of interest and all the authors are agreed to publish the paper. Author-dispute related issues will not be entertained after the publication of the research. Corresponding author will also be liable to provide permission letter (if needed) when paper is coming from a particular institute.

Journal of Plant and Environment does not require authors to assign copyright of their published original research papers to the journal. Authors publishing with Journal of Plant and Environment retains the copyright to their work allowing the articles to be re-used and re-distributed without restriction, as long as the original work is correctly cited. Authors do not need prior written permission from Journal of Plant and Environment to post their own published paper on personal, social or University websites. The responsibility to the contents and its authenticity rests solely with the authors and they will solely be responsible for originality of published work.

Journal of Plant and Environment support the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing.

Articles are published under a CC-BY license (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License). The CC-BY license allows for maximum dissemination and re-use of open access materials and is preferred by many research funding bodies. Under this license, users are free to share (copy, distribute and transmit) and remix (adapt) the contribution including for commercial purposes, providing they attribute the contribution in the manner specified by the author or licensor. For any reuse or distribution, users must make clear to others the license terms of this work, preferably using a link to the Creative Commons webpage.

Manuscripts submitted for publication in Journal of Plant and Environment are peer reviewed by at least two subject reviewers. A decision of the editorial board member on the choice of reviewers is final.

Journal of Plant and Environment publishes three times a year. However, being an Online Journal, it allows fast track publication of articles of urgency and critical importance to the researchers and community. Such articles of 'Current Interest' and relevant editorials may be published frequently as 'Supplements', based on editorial board decision or on the requests/ suggestions of the readers of the journal.

Journal of Plant and Environment shall not take any responsibility for the contents of articles published and all such responsibility shall lie with the author/s. The opinions expressed in the articles are solely of the author/s and Journal of Plant and Environment may not agree with such opinions in part or in full.

 

Publication Ethics

PUBLICATION ETHICS AND PUBLICATION MALPRACTICE STATEMENT

Journal of Plant and Environment aimed to publish high quality work which is an essential building block in the development of knowledge-based network of researchers. It is necessary to agree upon standards of expected ethical behaviour for all parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer and the publisher.

Publication decisions
The editor of the Journal of Plant and Environment will be responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal will be published. The editor may be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editor may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision. The decision on a paper is made purely on the scientific and technical grounds to maintain the quality of publications and to ensure publication ethics.

Transparency in Conduct
Editors of the Journal put a significant contribution in Peer-review process and they are selected on the basis of their scientific knowledge, expertise in a particular field and reputation. The editor will evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Confidentiality
The editor and editorial staff of Journal of Plant and Environment will be bound to ensure confidentiality. They shall not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate. The Editors shall not disclose any content (full or partial) in any media (online or print) before publication or without the prior written consent of the authors.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript will not be used in an editorial board or editor’s own research without the written consent of the author. The Editor must not be involved in such papers which are submitted by colleagues, research group or relatives or in which the editor has a personal interest. All such submitted papers shall pass through a normal peer-review process to make a fair decision without the involvement of relevant Editor.

Fundamental Errors in Published Works
When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.

Referee suggestions
Authors are welcome to suggest suitable independent referees when they submit their manuscript, but these suggestions may not be used by the editorial office. Authors may also request that the Journal of Plant and Environment excludes a few (usually not more than two) individuals or laboratories. The editorial office sympathetically considers such exclusion requests and usually honours them, but the decision of the Editorial Board Member on the choice of referees is final.

 

CrossMark Policy Statement

CrossMark is a multi-publisher initiative by CrossRef to provide a standard way for readers to locate the authoritative version of an article or other published content. By applying the CrossMark button, EScience Press is committing to maintaining the content it publishes and to alerting readers to changes if and when they occur.

The Crossmark button gives readers quick and easy access to the current status of an item of content, including any corrections, retractions, or updates to that record.

For more information on CrossMark, please visit the CrossMark site.

EScience Press content that will have the CrossMark button is restricted to current and future journal content and is limited to specific publication types.

Correction and Retraction Policies
EScience Press is committed to uphold the integrity of the literature and publishes Errata, Expressions of Concerns or Retraction Notices dependent on the situation and in accordance with the COPE Retraction Guidelines. In all cases, these notices are linked to the original article.

More information on journal policies publication ethics can be found here: About the Journal.

Information on COPE Retraction Guidelines can be found here: Retraction Guidelines.