Peer review process
Manuscripts received in the Bol. Soc. Argent. Bot. are first evaluated by the Editorial Committee to:
(i) verify their originality and relevance to the scope of the journal and.
ii) adequacy to the instructions for authors.
If it corresponds to the subject matter and originality but does not comply with the instructions for authors, the manuscript will be returned to the corresponding author for correction. The Editorial Committee may directly reject manuscripts without resorting to reviewers, if it does not consider them pertinent, or if it presents evidence of fraud or is not original.
When compliance with the required conditions has been verified, the date of receipt of the manuscript is recorded and a Section Editor, a specialist in the subject of the article, is assigned. The Editor sends the manuscript to a minimum of two referees or anonymous reviewers, in a single-blind system. The reviewers are specialists with experience in the subject matter of the paper, external to the editorial committee, who have a maximum of 6 weeks to return corrections and suggestions. The list of referees is published in the last issue of each year.
Special attention is paid to the interest of novel contributions to knowledge. When the opinions of the reviewers are divergent, a third reviewer will be consulted, the final decision always remaining with the editors. The response of the referees may be:
(a) Accept submission,
(b) Publishable with modifications,
(c) Re-evaluable: in its current version the paper is not acceptable and should be resubmitted, initiating the peer review process,
(d) Not publishable.
The referees' observations and criticisms are evaluated by the Editor, who informs the corresponding author in writing of the result of the evaluation, together with editorial observations.
If it is evaluated as "Publishable with modifications", the author(s) must resubmit a modified version to the journal within a maximum of 5 (five) weeks, so that the Editorial Committee and the reviewers can analyze the manuscript again. This manuscript should have the changes made highlighted (in yellow). In addition, a note will be sent to the editor detailing the changes made.
The final acceptance of the papers depends on strict compliance with the requirements of the journal, the responses that the authors offer to the reviewers' reflections and compliance with ethical standards and good practices.
Accepted manuscripts are published in the order in which they are received.
If there is suspicion about the originality of the material, the Editorial Board may check for plagiarism in the manuscript, using tools provided by Google. In cases of plagiarism, the manuscript will be returned without evaluation and without the possibility of resubmission. Self-plagiarism (the use of identical phrases from previously published works by the same author) is also not acceptable and will be controlled by the Editorial Board (more information below, in SAB Ethics and Editorial Statement of Good Practices).
If copyrighted material is reproduced in the manuscript, full attribution must be provided in the text and proof of permission must be sent to the Editorial Board, this being the responsibility of the authors.