Guidelines

The Editor of a research journal plays a key role in establishing and maintaining the professional
standards. Editor is responsible in establishing and maintaining the professional standards of
journal at different levels i.e., from receiving an article till publishing. An editor must adapt the
following guidelines while publishing papers in his/her research journal.
 The Editor’s Responsibilities
The Editor is responsible for:
 Establishing and maintaining quality of the journal by publishing quality research.
 Promotion of freedom of expression within the cultural, constitutional/legal
framework,
 Maintaining ethical standards of the journal,
 Meeting the needs of authors and readers,
 Providing corrigendum for any correction, clarification, and apologies if/when required.
 Providing integrity and credibility of the research contributions,
 Good job practices would include to:
 Encourage any new ideas and suggestions of authors, peer reviewers, members
ofeditorial board and readers to improve quality of the journal.
 Promote innovative findings in respective field and publishing them on priority,
 Educate and encourage contributors (authors) to follow ethical practices in research,
 Promote anti plagiarism policy,
 Apply the process of blind peer review in true letter and spirit,
 Implement the journal’s policy without institutional pressure and policy revision as
andwhen required.
 Fair play and Impartiality
The Editor should
 Select academically and scientifically sound articles and the criteria for the selection of
research papers must be impartial to all research papers submitted for publication
 Promptly respond to the author (s) of the papers submitted for publication,
 Assign a specific number to an article submitted for processing.

2

 while selecting articles for publication to ensure evaluation of the content ofresearch
papers impartially,
 Make sure impartiality of the review process by informing the reviewer (s) that s/he
needs to disclose any conflicts of interest regarding the submitted research paper.
 Confidentiality
 The Editor must ensure confidentiality of the author(s) and reviewers during the
process of double-blind peer review,
 Information pertaining to a research paper should not be disclosed by the Editor to
anyone except the author(s), reviewer(s), and editorial board members,
 Upon reaching a decision about a research paper, only the Editor may disclose or
announce title of the study and name of the author(s) that has been accepted for
publication. Any other information may only be disclosed with the prior approval of
the author(s),
 Editor should declare clear guidelines to the contributors (authors) regarding
confidentiality of the individual participant.
 Confidentiality of the participants of the research should also be ensured by protecting
personal information (e.g., identifiable personal details, images, and/or individual
results).
 Prior to publication, the content of the manuscript should be kept confidential, both the
Editor and reviewer(s) will not share or use any part of the work.
 Transparency
 The Editor must ensure that multiple papers as a principal investigator submitted by an
author should not be published in the same issue.
 Those who are contributing a research paper as a principal investigator in the same
issue are allowed for only one co-authorship in the same issue.

3

 Authorship should only be given to those individuals who have substantially
contributed to the said article.
 Disclosure
 The Editor must not use any unpublished information/data from the submitted research
paper without the permission of the author(s), and
 Any information received after the peer review process must be kept confidential and
not used for personal gains.
 Editing and Formatting Guidelines
Editor is responsible for providing clear guidelines with respect to formatting and editing
of each manuscript, which must be available online and in each issue.
 The Review Process
Editor should ensure that
 All the details about the review process are clearly stated,
 All the published papers have gone through a double-blind peer review, and at least
one of the reviewers is from outside the country
 Peer-review is masked in both directions and the identity of the author is removed from
the manuscript prior to its review to protect the confidentiality and privacy.
 Sufficient guidelines are available to reviewers, including necessary information about
the review process and a reviewer comment form for recording his/her comments.
 Peer-review process is prompt, nondiscriminatory and highly professional.
 Reviewers' comments are sent to author(s) promptly and the corrections suggested by
the reviewers are incorporated by the author(s) in true letter and spirit.
 Peer-review practices regularly are critically evaluated and make improvements, if,
required.
 A database of competent and qualified reviewers is maintained regularly. For this
purpose, various sources other than personal contacts to identify new reviewers (e.g.,
referring by author (s), citations, and references section in a book/journal), can be
used.
 Troublesome cases (e.g., in case of one acceptance and one rejection or any conflict
arisen after review) are referred to Advisory Committee to resolve the matter
agreeably.

4

 Publication Decisions
 The Editorial Board should only shortlist research papers which have relevance to the
scope of the journal clearly stated in the Journal, using his /her judgment, but without
any personal bias.
 After completion of the reviewing process, the submission of revised manuscript, and
assessing the quality and validity, the Editor has a right to accept or reject a research
paper.
 The Editor's decisions to accept or reject a paper for publication should be based purely
on merit, academic standards, and professional demands of the journal.
 The Editor must justify the reason (s) of rejecting a research paper to author(s). This
may include:
o Failure to fit in the scope of the journal (may be communicated after preliminary
review)
o Insufficient depth of content
o Major errors related to design, analysis, write up and format
o Any misconduct or conflicting factors (e.g., plagiarism, copyright
infringement,legal issues, fake data, authorship issues)
 The Editors should not reverse decisions in favor or against author(s) on their own.
 Procedure for Appeal
The Editor is responsible for establishing a proper mechanism for appeals launched against:
 The rejection of a research paper.
 Objections to publications causing harm to any party.
 Infringement of ethical boundaries by any means.
 Dealing with Misconduct
The Editor should encourage reviewers

 To comment on the validity of submitted research paper and identify 'subtle (simply copy-
paste)' and/or 'blatant (paraphrasing)' type of plagiarism, if, practiced by the author(s).

5

 To comment on ethical issues and possible research and publication misconduct (e.g.,
inappropriate research design, incomplete detail on participant's consent, data
manipulation, and presentation).
 Conflict of Interest
 To ensure transparency and following guidelines of Higher Education Commission
Pakistan (HEC), the Journal National Journal of Biological Sciences (NJBS) do not
publish any research article from the members of editorial board.
 The Editor must publish a list of common interests (e.g., financial, academic and/or any
other type) for all Editorial Board members and editorial staff. This list should be updated
from time to time.
 The Editor should not edit a submitted paper for those author(s) and/or institution against
which s/he has any conflicts of interest (e.g., resulting from competitive, collaborative
and/or professional standing).