The authors, editors and reviewers of ABS are expected to follow the best-practice guidelines on ethical behavior contained in the above-mentioned documents. Some key points concerning the ethical behavior are listed below;

Responsibilities of Authors

Authorship

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the concept, design, execution, or interpretation of the research study. All those who have made significant contributions should be offered the opportunity to be listed as authors. Other individuals who have contributed to the study should be acknowledged, but not identified as authors.

Originality

Authors of the manuscripts submitted are required to ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the works of others that this has been properly cited or quoted. Authors must cite publications that have influenced the nature of the work reported.

Each Manuscript submitted for publications should be considered as original work.

Notification of Fundamental Errors

Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements are considered unethical and are unacceptable. The authors should not submit a manuscript to the Annals of Biological Studies (ABS) if it is plagiarized or fraudulent/fabricated. If author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to notify the publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.

Multiple Publications

Simultaneous submission of a manuscript to more than one journal is actually an unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. An author should not publish manuscripts containing essentially the same/similar results in more than one journal. Submission of a manuscript to ABS implies that the same/similar manuscript has not been published elsewhere, is not currently submitted for publication elsewhere, and, if accepted by this journal, will not be published elsewhere.

Corresponding Author

• When manuscripts have more than one author, a corresponding author should be nominated.
• The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors (and no inappropriate co-authors) are included in the authors’ list of the manuscript.
• The corresponding author must ensure that all co-authors have read and approved the final version of the manuscript and have agreed to its submission for publication.
• The corresponding author is responsible for the manuscript from submission to publication, including revision.
• The corresponding must provide source files in the journal template on acceptance of the paper.

Co-authors

Every author is required to disclose in the submitted manuscript any financial or any other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of the manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should also be disclosed in the submitted manuscript.

Citations

The authors should cite only the relevant publications, and they should refrain from self-citation as much as possible.

Responsibilities of Editors

Fair Play

Editorial decisions on the manuscripts submitted to the Annals of Biological Studies (ABS) are made entirely based on their scientific content, importance, originality, clarity, language fluency, contribution to the scientific fields of interest to the journal’s audience (as defined in the journal’s scope); regardless of ethnic origin, citizenship, sexual orientation, race, gender, religious belief, or political orientation of the authors.

Confidentiality

Editors and other editorial staff of ABS are expected to keep the information obtained from the submitted manuscripts confidential and to keep the reviewers’ identities protected. Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in any form of an editor’s own research without the written consent of the author(s).

Peer Review

The editors should carefully consider the assignment of the article to the examiners with a scientific expertise appropriate to the subject of the article. The editors should guarantee the originality of the manuscript and to verify the typology of the article as well as the correspondence with the aims and scope of the journal.

Citations

Editors are expected to refrain from suggesting that authors include citations to their (or their associates’) work merely to increase citation counts or to enhance the visibility of their or their associates’ work; suggestions must be based on valid academic reasons.

Corrections/Errata, Retractions

Editorial office is expected to release errata, clarifications or apology statements and expected to not refrain from retracting a publication if there is clear evidence of scientific misconduct, unethical research, plagiarism or other violations of ethical scientific publishing.

Publication Decision

The editor of the journal is solely responsible for deciding which of the manuscripts submitted in the journal should be published.

Responsibilities of Reviewers

Agree/Decline to Review

• Reviewers should accept to participate in the review process of a manuscript only if they have enough expertise in the topic of the manuscript to carry out a proper assessment.
• Reviewers should not accept to participate in the review process of a manuscript if they have conflicts of interest arising from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with the authors, corporations, or institutions related to the manuscript.

Confidentiality

Reviewers are expected to keep the information obtained from the manuscripts, received for review, confidential. Unpublished materials disclosed in the manuscript must not be used in any form of a reviewer’s own research and must not be presented or discussed with others, without the written consent of the editor who handles the manuscript.

Standards of Objectivity

• Reviews must be carried out constructively and objectively. The personal criticism of the author(s) is inappropriate. Reviewers should clearly articulate their points of view with supporting arguments.
• Reviewers are expected to draw the handling editor’s attention to any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published document of which they have personal knowledge.
• Reviewers are expected to identify relevant published works that have not been cited by the authors. However, at the same time, they are also expected to refrain from suggesting that authors include citations to their (or their associates’) work merely to increase citation counts or to enhance the visibility of their or their associates’ work; suggestions must be based on valid academic reasons.

Ethical violations

• The manuscripts will be immediately rejected due to the following ethical violations:
• Plagiarism
• Duplicate/Multiple Submission(s)
• Citation Manipulation
• Data Fabrication and Falsification
• Improper Author Contribution or Attribution
• Redundant Publications

Errata, Author Corrections, Retractions

Errata

Errata provide a means of correcting errors that occurred during the writing, typing, editing, or publication (e.g., a misspelling, a dropped word or line, or mislabeling in a figure) of a published article. Submit Errata via an email attachment to the managing editor of the respective journal.

Author Corrections

Author Corrections provide a means of correcting errors of omission (e.g., author names or citations) and errors of a scientific nature that do not alter the overall basic results or conclusions of a published article. Note that the addition of new results/data is not permitted.

Retractions

Retractions are reserved for major errors or breaches of ethics that, for example, may call into question the source of the data or the validity of the results and conclusions of an article.

Retraction of a paper is applied in the following cases:

• The paper leads to ethical violations (plagiarism, data fabrication, falsification, simultaneous submissions, duplicate publications, etc.)
• The paper contains errors which couldn’t be corrected in a subsequent erratum notice.

Online Comments

The ABS has the feature of adding notes on its published articles. For example, if someone finds some error(s) in a published article or discovers ways in which a published article can be improved, he/she may send such information to Managing Editor of journal then that information will be reviewed by some Editorial Team’s member(s) (as well as by some external referee(s), if needed) and if the submitted information pass this test, then it will be added in a webpage that will be linked to the published paper with date.

No comments will be published in printed version of the journal