Evaluation

All submissions to the Journal of Geophysics (the journal; us) are peer-reviewed to the highest academic standards. If appropriate and determined so by editors, submissions get reviewed externally too.

 

Plagiarism and self-plagiarism

Authors must not use the writings or ideas of others (plagiarism) or themselves (self-plagiarism and re-publishing) without attribution in any language or context. The authors must cite all sources on first use. This journal uses a set of tools to cross-check all submissions for plagiarism.

Manuscripts found plagiarized will be rejected and the authors listed on the journal website. Any such published articles will be corrected or retracted.

 

Dual submission

Like many journals that allow or do not have/are not enforcing it as a policy, this journal allows (and encourages) the so-called dual submission. Predatory ("academic" and commercial) publishers strictly forbid dual submissions, thus trying to lower business risk and secure the highest gains/profits.

Dual submission encourages the exchange of ideas, raises the quality of peer review, and speeds up the scientific process. All this while lowering the profits of predatory ("academic") publishers. Only profiteer publishers care where a paper is published; journals should only care whether a new scholarly article brings an important new science, regardless of where it is published.

 

Redundant materials

The Journal of Geophysics considers only original content. We welcome articles based on content previously made public only in a thesis or on an institutional repository or a preprint server (used in general for priority claims over scientific discoveries).

We will consider proposals for conference proceedings and special (including topical) editions.

Redundant publication, the inappropriate division of study outcomes into more than one article (also known as salami slicing), will result in rejection or retraction. Duplicate publication of the same or a very similar article will result in retraction.

 

Citation manipulation

This journal does not allow the inclusion of citations for the primary purpose of increasing the number of citations to a work or articles published in a particular journal.

Editors and reviewers must not ask authors to include references merely to increase citations to their own or their associate's work or any journal.

 

Fabrication and falsification

Authors who claim to be associated with research and scientific institutions must also use their respective email addresses at those institutions - both as their journal account email when submitting and as indicated in the manuscript.

Submitted manuscripts/published articles that have fabricated or falsified the results, including manipulating images, will be rejected/retracted.

 

Authorship and acknowledgments

All listed co-authors must have made a significant scientific contribution to the research in the manuscript, approved its claims, and agreed to be co-author. We will not consider submissions by anyone other than one of the co-authors.

Any significant aid from third parties, including funding support, can be acknowledged in the Acknowledgments section.

 

Conflicts of interest

Conflicts of interest occur when issues outside research could be reasonably perceived to affect the neutrality or objectivity of the work or its assessment. Potential conflicts of interest have to be declared regardless if impactfull or not. In most cases, this declaration will not stop work from being published, nor will it always prevent someone from being involved in a review process.

If unsure, declare a potential interest or discuss it with the editorial office. Undeclared interests may incur sanctions. Submissions with undeclared conflicts that get revealed later on are subject to rejection. Published articles may need to be re-assessed, have a corrigendum published, or become subject to retraction in severe cases.

Conflicts include the following:

     ● Financial — funding or other payments, goods, and services received or expected and related to the work or from an organization with interest in the work;

     ● Affiliations — employees, members, or board members of an organization with interest in the work;

     ● Intellectual property — patents or trademarks owned by someone or their organization;

     ● Personal — friends, family, relationships, and other close personal connections;

     ● Ideology — beliefs or activism, for example, political or religious, relevant to the work;

     ● Academic — competitors or someone whose work is subject to a critique.

 

Authors

Authors must declare all potential interests in a Conflicts of Interest section, explaining the reasons. If there are no conflicts of interest, the authors should state: —The author(s) declare(s) that there are no conflicts of interest. The submitting authors are responsible for gathering such statements from their co-authors.

All co-authors must declare funding regardless if there is a conflict or not and do so in the Acknowledgments section.

The involvement of anyone other than the authors who 1) has an interest in the outcome of the work; 2) is affiliated to an organization with such an interest; or 3) was employed or paid by a funder in the commissioning, conception, planning, design, conduct, or analysis of the work, the preparation or editing of the manuscript or the decision to publish, must be declared.

 

Editors and reviewers

The editors and reviewers will consider declaring conflicts of interest and including those conflicts, if any, in the published article accordingly.

Editors and reviewers should decline to be involved with a submission when they:

     ● Have a recent publication or current submission with any author, or

     ● Share or have shared an affiliation with any author, or

     ● Collaborate or have collaborated with any author, or

     ● Have a close personal connection to any author, or

     ● Have a financial interest in the subject of the work, or

     ● Share the same or opposing strong views or feelings with any author about anything, or

     ● Feel unable to be objective.

Reviewers must declare any remaining interests in the For Editor section of the Review Form to be considered by the Editor-in-Chief.

Editors and reviewers must declare if they have previously discussed the manuscript with the authors.

 

Investigation

Suspected breaches of our publication ethics policies, either before or after publication, and concerns about research ethics, should be reported to ethics@geophysicsjournal.com.

Claimants will be kept anonymous on request, though claimants may also wish to use an anonymous email service.

We may ask the authors to provide the underlying data and images, consult editors, and contact institutions or employers to ask for an investigation or raise concerns.

 

Sanctions

If the journal becomes aware of breaches of our publication ethics policies, regardless if in this journal or elsewhere, these sanctions may follow:

     ● Rejecting the manuscript and any other manuscripts submitted by the author(s), or

     ● Excluding the violator from acting as an editor or reviewer.

The journal may apply additional sanctions for severe ethical violations.

 

Corrections and retractions

When we identify errors in published articles, the Editor-in-Chief will consider what action is required and consult the editors and the authors' institution(s).

Authors' errors get reported in Corrigenda and journal errors in Errata.

If errors significantly affect the conclusions, or there is evidence of misconduct, this may require retraction or an expression of concern.

To publish with this journal, all such authors must agree to the correction notice's content either explicitly or implicitly (on submitting their work to the journal).