Policies

Publication Policy and Scope

African Entomology continues from the former Journal of the Entomological Society of Southern Africa and is published by the Entomological Society of Southern Africa. Full-length papers and short communications on original research or reviews of any aspect of entomology in or relevant to Africa and its surrounding islands will be considered for publication.

Language Policy

Manuscripts should be submitted in concise and clear English using U.K. spelling. Authors for whom English is a second language should have their manuscript professionally edited before submission to improve the English. Submitted manuscripts deemed to not adhere to high English language standards, either by the Editor-in-Chief, Deputy Editor, or Subject Editor (a member of the Editorial Board), or the referees, may be reverted back to the corresponding author at any stage of the revision process.

Our recommended language editing service provider should be contacted directly for pricing and payment information: Barry Blair Editing: blairbh@telkomsa.net

Authorship Policy

All authors should qualify for authorship following the standards as set out by the ICMJE. In short, authors should have made significant contributions to the conception of the work, the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data, drafting or critically revising previous versions of the manuscript, and provide approval of the submission of the final version for publishing. The corresponding author is the person solely responsible for communicating with the journal and managing communication between co-authors, getting the approval of all contributing authors for submission of the particular manuscript version and for the order of authors listed, distributing proofs to all co-authors and returning all proof corrections to the editorial office in a single edited manuscript proof. When submitting a manuscript, the corresponding author is required to indicate the contribution, role and degree of contribution for each author using the CRediT Contributor Role Taxonomy in the submission letter to the Editor-in-Chief, which will also be included in the publication as the author contribution statement.

Peer-Review Policy

Manuscripts must fall within the scope of African Entomology. The authors must agree that the contribution is an original work, was not published elsewhere, is not being considered for publication elsewhere, and will not be submitted for publication elsewhere unless rejected by the journal or withdrawn by the author. A submitted manuscript will undergo an initial assessment by the Editor-in-Chief to ensure that it complies with all policies (including plagiarism policies), guidelines and the scope of the journal. Thereafter, manuscripts will be assigned to a specialist Subject Editor who will determine whether it is suitable for review or not. The Subject Editor will appoint at least two referees per manuscript. Authors are encouraged to propose referees and to provide their contact details, but it is at the discretion of the Subject Editor to include these recommended referees. Referees will always include at least one that is not on the recommended list. The review process is double blind (authors and referees are kept anonymous from each other). It is recommended that reviews be submitted to the Subject Editor within 21 days of accepting the role and a minimum of two reports are required to make a decision. Based on the referee recommendations the Subject Editor can then make a decision whether to accept the manuscript, with or without minor or major revision, return it for resubmission, or to reject. In cases where referee reports differ substantially in terms of their recommendations, the Subject Editor may refer the manuscript to an additional referee. Manuscripts returned for resubmission will be treated as new submissions. Authors will have 60 days to submit a revised manuscript whereafter the Subject Editor will make a decision after minor revisions, or in the case of major revisions, the Subject Editor may send the manuscript for another round of review by one or more referees.

Open Access Policy

African Entomology is a peer-reviewed, open access journal, supporting the Budapest Open Access Initiative principles: “By ‘open access’ to this literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, is to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.” Therefore, copyright remains with the author/s of the article/s.

Article Processing Charges (APCs)

Article processing charges are levied on all accepted papers. The scale of charges for members and non-members of the Entomological Society of Southern Africa is shown below in South African Rands (ZAR). The first author of accepted manuscript must be a paid-up member of the Entomological Society of Southern Africa for at least 2 years to qualify for the member discount.

Member APC per manuscript: ZAR5,500.00
Non-member APC per manuscript: ZAR10,000.00

Conflict of Interest Policy

Conflicts of interest must be declared by authors, reviewers and Subject Editors. During submission, authors need to declare any potential conflicts of interest. Relationships between Subject Editors/referees and authors considered as conflicts of interest include colleagues, recent co-authors, and students for which the Subject Editor/referee served as promotor, co-promotor or committee chair. Other potential conflicts of interest include, but are not limited to, funding sources, owning of shares, and payments. Referees need to inform the Subject Editor, and the Subject Editor needs to inform the Editor-in-Chief of any conflicts that may exist as outlined above or of those conflicts that may not be included in the list. If no available Subject Editor/reviewer satisfy all of the conflict screens, those who are least conflicted may be assigned to the manuscript. Therefore, a potential conflict of interest does not necessarily mean the submission will be rejected or that it will invalidate a referee report. The declaration of the potential conflict of interest will be included in the published version of the manuscript.

Appeals and Complaints

Authors have the right to appeal a decision on their manuscript by detailing the reason for the appeal in a letter to the Editor-in-Chief. The Editor-in-Chief will review all documentation and correspondence related to the manuscript before making a final decision on the relevance of the appeal. The decision of the Editor-in-Chief will be final. Complaints relating to the policies and procedures of the journal or the conduct of editorial staff should be lodged in a letter to the Editor-in-Chief. Complaints will be resolved as quickly as possible.

Confidentiality

All submitted manuscripts and correspondence with the Editorial Board must be treated as confidential by the authors, reviewers and editorial staff.

Ethics Policy

Submissions describing experiments involving vertebrate animals must include a statement that the research has been approved by an appropriate animal welfare or ethics committee, and that it conforms to the national guidelines for animal usage in research.

Plagiarism Policy

All submissions must be original. Plagiarism is defined as the use of another's work (book, article, website, etc.) or ideas, whether it be copied verbatim or paraphrased, without attribution or permission, and representation of them as one’s own original work. Plagiarism may range from more major forms such as the copy-and-paste of large amounts of text, to minor forms such as plagiarism without dishonest intent such as when an author uses parts of text from an earlier paper, and even self-plagiarism when portions of one's own work are reused without citing the original version.

All submitted manuscripts will be screened for potential plagiarism using similarity detection software. Potential plagiarism may also be highlighted during the review process of the manuscript. Manuscripts containing potential plagiarism as highlighted by similarity detection software or during the review process, will be assessed by the Editor-in-Chief on a case-by-case basis. If material has been deemed to contain possible plagiarised text, the corresponding author will be informed by the Editor-in-Chief that the manuscript is rejected on these grounds. If plagiarism is discovered after a manuscript has been published, the journal will conduct an investigation to determine the extent thereof. Plagiarised material deemed minor as determined by the Editor-in-Chief will be made public by publishing a statement indicating the plagiarised material and appropriate reference. In more extensive cases as determined by the Editor-in-Chief the article will be retracted and a statement published (see African Entomology 16(2): iii–iv). In such cases, the suspected misconduct will be reported to the institutes and funding agencies of the authors concerned.

Errata (Retractions, Corrections & Appeal) Policy

When manuscripts are deemed severely plagiarised by the Editor-in-Chief, or when publications are deemed redundant or contain data errors, these may be retracted, removed or replaced. A notice of retraction will be published and include the particulars of the publication (title and authors) and the reason for retraction.

Disclaimer

Neither the editorial staff, the Editorial Board nor the publisher accepts responsibility for opinions or viewpoints expressed, or for the correctness of facts and figures.

Digital Preservation Policy

African Entomology utilises both the Portico and the PKP Preservation Network (PN) systems to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. Click here to view African Entomology in the Portico Keeper's Registry.

Licensing and Copyright

An Attribution 4.0 International Creative Commons License (CC BY 4.0) applies to all articles published in African Entomology.

Anyone gaining access, electronically or otherwise, to a contribution published in African Entomology, may quote from such contribution, use the intellectual content thereof, share and adapt it, but subject to the following conditions:

you must give appropriate credit, provide a link and indicate if changes were made; and
the copyright of the author(s) may not be infringed in any way.