EDITORIAL TEAM GUIDELINES

• General Guidelines
• Editor-in-chief 
• Responsibilities 
• Section Editors
• Responsibilities 
• Choice of the evaluator by the section editor
• Editorial Council
• Responsibilities 
• Editorial Support
• Responsibilities 
• Editorial Flow

 

General Guidelines

The scientific journal PAG presents the guidelines for the members of the editorial board. All Editors must be aware of the definitions and assignments presented in this manual. The editorial board is made up of researchers with notable scientific knowledge in the fields of agrarian and related sciences. The editors act on a voluntary basis, with no remuneration or link to the institution responsible for the journal regarding their participation as a member of the editorial board.

PAG editors should strive for a friendly relationship with authors and reviewers, treating them kindly and demanding that opinions bring scientific opinions, without any kind of hostility to the authors.

The PAG journal will not publish scientific texts that attack, offend, or hostile any gender, ideological, ethnic-racial, cultural, or environmental position. As well as, it will not distinguish geographic location, gender, ethnic-racial, or any other regarding the authors, being treated in an impartial way.

Publishers must maintain confidentiality regarding publications, and undertake not to use all or part of the text, materials, ideas, and data disclosed in a submitted article, without the express and written consent of the author. It should demand the same commitment from the reviewers.

Editors should not follow manuscripts that have any conflict of interest related to the articles. In these cases, inform the editor-in-chief.

Any suspicion of misconduct must be immediately reported to the Editor-in-chief or assistant editor. Editors must take reasonable measures when ethical complaints are made in relation to a submitted manuscript or published article. If, in the investigation, the complaint is substantiated, a correction, retraction, apology or other note, whenever necessary, will be published on the journal's website.

Editors may publish in the journal PAG, however, they will not act in the editorial process of that edition.

The ethical and reviewer guidelines can be consulted on the journal's website:

http://revistapag.agricultura.rs.gov.br/ojs/index.php/revistapag/index 

 

Editor-in-chief

Responsibilities

The Editor-in-Chief (or managing editor) is responsible for the configuration and organization of editions and publications. Choice of the editorial board, emphasizing the exogeny of editors and reviewers; editorial policies, content quality, and indexing in databases and directories of scientific journals. Edit emails, forms, ethical and editorial guidelines, and all other information and decisions regarding the Journal and articles.

The registration of editors, reviewers, authors, and other users of the journal's system is carried out by the editor-in-chief or assistant editor.

The Assistant Editor works together with the Editor-in-Chief, in editorial decisions, ensuring the quality of the magazine. In the absence of the editor-in-chief, the deputy editor is responsible for these duties. The Assistant Editor must be fully aware of all stages of editing, providing the editor-in-chief and the editorial committee with information necessary for decision making.

The first reading of the article regarding the scope of the journal and scientific rigor is made by the editor-in-chief and then by the assistant editor. Then, the article is sent to the Section Editor, for a second evaluation and selection of reviewers.

Approved manuscripts are returned to the chief and adjunct editors for text editing, proofing, final publication, DOI assignment, and indexing.

 

Section Editors

Responsibilities

The Section Editor is responsible for making the preliminary assessment of articles in his area, which are assigned to him, defining their continuity or not in the double-blind review process. The evaluation must be based on scientific criteria, emphasizing the exogenous nature of the authors. Afterwards, the section editor will nominate and/or suggest referees; as well as follow the articles throughout the editorial process until their approval or rejection.

Editors must observe the schedule established for scientific arbitration, review of the authors, and the final decision, ensuring that the deadlines are met. If there is a need to increase deadlines, these must be agreed upon with the Editor-in-chief.

The process of prior reading of the manuscript and selection of reviewers should not take more than 7 days, since the journal is committed to ensuring an agile process for the authors.

Manuscripts are followed throughout the editorial process by the section editor, who will make his editorial recommendations to the Editor-in-Chief, based on the reviewers' opinions, and impartially, maintaining the final editorial decision with Editor-in-Chief.

The Section Editor must ensure that the process takes place in the double-blind review system, which means that he will have to check if the authors and reviewers send their opinions or manuscripts without identifying the property. If this happens, the editor must remove the properties from the file.

 

Choice of the evaluator by the section editor

The Section Editor must invite at least 4 (four) reviewers for each submission, and at least 2 (two) must agree to evaluate the manuscript. The reviewer's choice should be based on the reviewer's expertise regarding the manuscript content; preferably not from the same institution as the authors or having published together in the last 5 years.

Opinions may return with the following recommendations:

• Request modifications: The document is returned to the authors, as they should consider the notes and observations, evaluate and resend a new version of the material, which will eventually undergo a new evaluation round (guaranteeing the double-blind review).
• Accept submission: Authors are notified of acceptance, and the document is sent directly to the stage of text editing, layout and subsequent production, without going through the evaluation flow.

• Reject submission: Authors are advised of denial of publication and the manuscript will go to the archive.

In the options accept and reject, the editor-in-chief or assistant editor must be called for joint decision.

After the stage, the accepted manuscript returns to the editor-in-chief or assistant editor for text editing, proofing, and final publication.

 

Editorial Council

Responsibilities

The members of the Editorial Board have an advisory role and can be called upon to give an opinion on manuscripts submitted for publication, to act as a consultant to resolve doubts on ethical issues or opinions of divergent reviewers, controversial cases, on issues of conflicts of interest or other issues related to ethical and editorial policies.

All recommendations of the Editorial Board must be based on  COPE's ethical guidelines, PAG's editorial and ethical policies, good scientific publication practices and the recommendations of the journal's indexers and the Brazilian Association of Scientific Editors (ABEC).

In cases where the board member knows the author's identity, he/she must make his/her recommendations impartially.

 

Editorial Support

Responsibilities

The editorial support team will support the journal's configuration and layout activities; submission, verification of checklists, text editing, layout and other editorial functions.

 

Editorial Flow

Submission: New submissions are assigned to Section Editors and considered to move to the Review stage.

Some manuscripts are inadequate and do not pass this stage.

Review: manuscripts considered suitable are sent by the section editor for peer review.

Some submissions will not pass the review and will end in the first review step. Some require modifications, requested by the reviewers, and are again sent to the authors for the necessary adjustments; when they return, they are referred to a second evaluation round. Those who are accepted move on to the next stage.

Text editing: accepted articles move to this stage, where they are enhanced by the work of a proofreader. Authors may have the opportunity to review the text.

Editing: As soon as the copies are completed and approved, the submission proceeds to this stage. In production, the copied files are converted into proofs - HTML, XML, PDF, etc. Once again, the author has the opportunity to review the evidence. As soon as everyone is satisfied, the submission is scheduled for publication in an issue.