Editorial Policies
Any manuscript submitted to the LJN must not be under consideration by any other journal or already published in any journal or other citable form. Submission of a manuscript implies that all authors have read and agreed to its final content and take responsibility for their reported findings. Authors are expected to indicate that the study (where applicable) has been carried out with the approval of an appropriate ethical review committee. Additionally, all research carried out on humans must be in compliance with the Helsinki Declaration, and animal studies must follow internationally recognized guidelines. The authors are expected to include a statement to this effect in the Methodology section of the manuscript. The name of the ethical review committee’s approval body should also be provided. Informed consent for participation in the study and the use of clinical photographs of individual patients must also be documented. Manuscripts submitted by authors from pharmaceutical companies or commercial organizations that sponsor clinical trials, as well as those from individuals and companies working on industry-sponsored research, should adhere to the Good Publication Practice guidelines for pharmaceutical companies. These guidelines are designed to uphold responsible and ethical standards in the reporting of industry-sponsored clinical trials and research.
All papers and articles submitted are subjected to a rigorous peer review process. The journal’s policy is to obtain a minimum of three independent reviews of each article. It operates a double blind reviewing policy in which the reviewers’ names are concealed. Referees will be encouraged to provide substantive, constructive reviews that provide suggestions for improving the work and distinguish between mandatory and non-mandatory recommendations. All manuscripts accepted for publication are subject to plagiarism check (authors are encouraged to subject their manuscript to plagiarism check before submission to avoid undue delay in processing), editing for presentation, style and grammar. Any major redrafting is agreed with the author but the Editor’s decision on the text is final.
Papers should only be submitted for consideration once consent is given by all contributing authors. Authors should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the paper are acknowledged as contributing authors. The list of authors would include all those who have contributed substantially to the concept, design, data acquisition, analysis and interpretation; drafted the article, revised and/or approved the version to be published.
The Journal adheres to the highest standards of publishing ethics, with rigorous processes in place to ensure this is achieved.
Authors are responsible for obtaining permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere.
Pan African Journal of Life Sciences is a peer-reviewed journal which welcomes the submission of Original Papers, Review Articles and Letters to the Editors: