Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Authors must be honest in presenting the research results, as misconduct could corrupt scholarly literature, mislead other researchers and has the potential to impact the society in harmful ways, besides eroding trust and confidence. Association for Advancement of Entomology (AAE) and Entomon follows the guidelines and principles set by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), throughout our publication process.

Research Integrity, Honesty and Publication Ethics

Entomon upholds high standards and responsible conduct in research. Our policies pertain to:

• honesty in the conduct of research, reporting of results and honouring commitments,
• accuracy in reporting of research results and taking all reasonable care to avoid errors,
• transparency, and willingness to own up and correct mistakes,
• objectivity and avoiding bias. 

Concerns of violation of these guidelines may be notified to the Chief Editor or members of the Editorial Board for initiating appropriate corrective measures.

Independence of Editorial Process

Entomon is the official journal of the Association for Advancement of Entomology (AAE), yet maintains editorial independence from the AAE. To ascertain editorial independence and avoid bias through conflicts of interest, Entomon does not consider manuscripts authored or co-authored by the incumbent President or Secretary of AAE or the Chief Editor. Manuscripts authored or co-authored by other members of the Editorial Board will be handled independently by the Chief Editor.  

Research Misconduct

We adopt the definition of Research Misconduct provided by the US Office of Science and Technology Policy: fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting research results. According to COPE, good research should be well justified, well planned, appropriately designed, and ethically approved. To conduct research to a lower standard may constitute misconduct. Research misconduct does not include differences of opinion and honest errors.

Fabrication is making up data or results and recording or reporting them.

Falsification is manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record.

Plagiarism is the appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit. Reproducing text from other papers without properly crediting the source (plagiarism) or producing many papers with almost the same content by the same authors (self-plagiarism) is not acceptable. We endorse the COPE insistence that all sources should be disclosed, and when other people’s written or illustrative material is to be used, permission MUST be sought.

Fabrication, falsification or selective reporting of data with the intent to mislead or deceive is unethical, as is the theft of data or research results from others. Research misconduct involving authors of articles published in Entomon would invite appropriate action, including retraction, correction or expression of concern. We request members of the science community to raise any suspicion of research misconduct to the notice of the Editorial Board or Chief Editor.  

Authorship

All those who have made a significant contribution should be given authorship with institutional affiliation(s). Individuals, who did not make a significant contribution, should not be listed as authors.

An author of Entomon should meet the following COPE criteria:

• Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition,

analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;

• Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
• Final approval of the version to be published;
• Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

As per COPE guidelines, the award of authorship should balance intellectual contributions to the conception, design, analysis and writing of the study against the collection of data and other routine work. If there is no task that can reasonably be attributed to a particular individual, then that individual should not be credited with authorship.

All authors must take public responsibility for the content of their paper.

Those who do not meet the criteria of authorship, but has supported the work in various ways, should be properly acknowledged.

The corresponding author should act on behalf of all co-authors and follow the authorship policy of Entomon.

Redundant Publication

According to COPE, redundant publication occurs when two or more papers, without full cross reference, share the same hypothesis, data, discussion points, or conclusions.

Submitting the same results to more than one journal concurrently is unethical.

Simultaneous submission of the same manuscript to different journals is prohibited.

Submission of a manuscript to Entomon implies that the content has neither been published earlier nor will be sent to any other publisher without written intimation to Entomon.

Research with Humans or Animals

Research involving humans or higher animals, including legally protected species, should be sanctioned by the concerned ethics committee(s) and should conform to national and international legal standards and conventions such Convention on Biological Diversity, Nagoya Protocol and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). 

Conflict of Interest

According to COPE, conflicts of interest comprise those which may not be fully apparent and which may influence the judgment of author, reviewers, and editors. Authors and reviewers of Entomon are required to declare any potential conflict of interest that is likely to interfere with the integrity and objectivity of the publication. Editors or reviewers may need to withdraw from the review and selection process of such submissions, to avoid possible bias.

Disclosure of Funding

All funding agencies and institutions, financially supporting the work submitted to Entomon, should be declared and acknowledged. 

Peer Review and Editorial Process

All manuscripts, following a preliminary scrutiny by the editorial team, will be subjected to peer review by at least two experts who are specialists in the area of the submitted paper. Entomon aims to process the manuscripts with in five months of submission.

Entomon follows single-blind peer review. Submitted manuscripts are treated as confidential documents. The reviewers are expected to maintain confidentiality while providing thorough, objective and constructive criticism of the manuscript. They are also expected to explain and justify the advice provided to the Editorial Board.    

Freedom of Expression, Libel and Disclaimer

Entomon upholds our authors' right to freedom of expression, however, we do not support false statements against individuals or organizations. The information and opinions presented in the articles published in Entomon reflect the views of the author(s) and not of the journal or its editorial board or the publisher. Mention of any product or trade names do not imply endorsement by the journal or publisher. Legal opinion will be sought in case of allegations of libel, and will proceed accordingly.   

Retractions, Corrections, Clarifications and Apologies

All authors have an obligation to inform and cooperate with the editors to provide prompt correction of errors in published works.

Other forms of misconduct include failure to meet clear ethical and legal requirements such as misrepresentation of interests, breach of confidentiality, lack of informed consent and abuse of research subjects or materials.

If a possible misconduct is brought to our attention, we will seek advice from the referees and the Editorial Board. Authors will be given the opportunity to respond to accusations of serious misconduct and appropriate corrections will be highlighted in the printed and online version of the journal and the author(s) will be blacklisted. Employers and funding agencies of authors, who commit serious misconduct accompanied by convincing evidence, will be notified of the misconduct.

Depending on the seriousness of the misconduct, the journal will resort to retractions, corrections, clarifications or apologies, following COPE guidelines.

Image Editing and Manipulation

We expect that the authors should specify image editing for legitimate reasons in ‘Material and Methods’. However, manipulation of images to misrepresent the results is unacceptable.

Transparency of Data and Supporting Evidence, Access to Specimens and Research Material

We urge our publishing partners to uphold principles of transparency in research publishing. Authors are expected to maintain accurate records of observations and data and the same should be made available to other workers on reasonable request. This is essential for those who are interested to verify and replicate the findings, and to avoid any possible accusations of misconduct. Voucher specimens should be deposited in public repositories, to facilitate verification by others, in case of new reports. Reagents and other research material should also be made available on request.

Copyright and Access

Copy right of articles published in Entomon is vested with the Association for Advancement of Entomology (AAE) and the same is indicated on the first page of every article. Entomon in PDF format is distributed free of charge among members of AAE. We also partner with content delivery and abstracting services such as CAB Direct and EBSCO. Full text of the articles published in Entomon is freely accessible to subscribers of CAB Direct. Hard copies of the journal are available to individuals and institutions, on paid subscription. Entomon welcomes non-commercial use of its content by the science community. Those who are interested in commercial use of the material published in Entomon, should contact the Secretary, AAE for permissions.  

Third-Party Content in Manuscripts Submitted to Entomon

To reproduce any third-party content such as figures or tables, the authors should get explicit written permission of the copyrights holder. 

Publishing Schedule

Entomon publishes four issues a year, in March, June, September and December.

Membership and Page Charges

At least one of the authors of every manuscript should be a life/annual member of AAE. A fee of Rs 200 (US $ 10 for authors from countries denoted as advanced economies) will be charged for each black and white printed page (invoice will be sent along with the proof) for publication of articles in ENTOMON. If illustrations are desired in colour in the print, the actual cost of colour plate has to be borne by the author.

Archiving

Full text of Entomon is deposited with CABI'S Full Text Repository to ensure that they are preserved and easily located by scientists and professionals throughout the world, both now and in the future. Full texts of individual articles are freely accessible to subscribers of CAB Direct. We also aim to preserve the content of the journal by activating the '˜Archive' option of the Open Journal Systems, our publishing platform.