Editorial Policy
For journal, the following publication policies are applied by LNHMC.
Copyright Letter/Undertaking Form
Authors who publish in LNHMC journals retain copyright to their work. Submission of a manuscript to the respective journals implies that all authors have read and agreed to the content of the undertaking form or the Terms and Conditions. It is a condition of publication that manuscripts submitted to a journal have not been published and will not be simultaneously submitted or published elsewhere. Liaquat National grants the author(s) to exercise the rights in the article published as stated below:All articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided that the work is properly cited.
Ethics Approval
When reporting on human studies, specify whether the following procedures were in line with the ethical standards of the committee responsible for human experiments (institutional or regional) and the 1975 Helsinki Declaration. For potential studies, relating to human partners, authors are expected to seek the approval of (Regional / National / Institutional or Independent Ethics Committee or Review Board), obtain informed consent from adult research participants, and expression of approval for children aged over 7 years participating in the trial. Ensure the confidentiality of articles by mentioning participants' names, initials or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative equipment. When writing experiments on animals, specify that the institution’s or a national research council’s guide for, or a national law on the care and use of laboratory animals guide for the care and use of laboratory animals prepub was followed.
The name of the relevant institutional review board and approval number should be disclosed with ethical considerations in the article. The experimental procedure of animals should be as human as possible and the details of anesthetics and analgesics should be clearly stated. Ethical standards of experiments should be in line with the guidelines provided by the CPCSEA of Helsinki and the World Medical Association Declaration on the ethical principles of medical research for the study of experimental animals and humans, respectively. The journal will not consider any paper that is morally unacceptable.
Funding Statement
Authors should explain how research and publication of their article was funded, by the name of the sponsoring organization (fully written) and then the grant attached to the Square Letter. Number (s), for example: “This work was financially supported by [funding agency name] (Grant number xxx, yyy).
Similarly, If the study did not receive specific funding, but was performed as part of the authors' employment, please name this employer. If the fundraiser was involved in the decision to write, edit, approve, or publish the manuscript, please announce it.
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Plagiarism Prevention
LNH&MC uses the Turnitin software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. Turnitin software checks content against a database of periodicals, the Internet, and a comprehensive article database. It generates a similarity report, highlighting the percentage of overlap between the uploaded article and the published material. Any instance of content overlap is further scrutinized for suspected plagiarism according to the publisher s Editorial Policies. LNH&MC allows an overall similarity around 20% for a manuscript to be considered for publication.
Sanctions/Penalty
Sanctions/penalty maybe implemented against authors if they are in any way found in the breach of contract/ethics policies depending upon level of ethical violations.
- • Rejection of the submitted/in process manuscript(s).
- • Not accepting any more manuscript for a definite period of time.
- • Penalty maybe implemented against authors.
Plagiarism in Published Manuscripts
Published manuscripts which are found to contain plagiarized text are retracted from the journal s website after careful investigation and approval by the Editor-in-Chief of the journal. A Retraction Note as well as a link to the original article is published on the electronic version of the plagiarized manuscript and an addendum with retraction notification in the particular journal.
Peer Review
Liaquat National Journal of Primary Care follows the double blind peer-review procedure for submissions of all manuscripts to its journals. The minimum time of the peer-review process is 30 days for any submitted manuscript.All submitted articles are subjected to an extensive peer review in consultation with members of the journal s editorial board and independent external referees (usually two reviewers). All manuscripts are assessed rapidly and the decision based on all the peer reviewers' comments, taken by the journal’s Editor-in-Chief, is then conveyed to the author(s).
Submissions from the Editor-in-Chief will undergo independent peer-review and will be submitted to another Editor for his decision on acceptance.
Copyediting and Proofs
Articles must be written in good English in a clear and correct style in order to maintain uniformity throughout the text. Articles submitted are copyedited before they are published.
Appeals and Complaints
Generally, the editorial decisions are not reverted. However, authors who think that their manuscript was rejected due to a misunderstanding or mistake may seek an explanation for the decision. Appeals must give sound reasoning and compelling evidence against the criticism raised in the rejection letter. A difference of opinion as to the interest, novelty, or suitability of the manuscript for the journal will not be considered as an appeal. The EIC and other relevant editors will consider the appeal and the decision thereafter taken by the journal will be deemed final. Acceptance of the manuscript is not guaranteed even if the journal agrees to reconsider the manuscript, and the reconsideration process may involve previous or new reviewers or editors and substantive revision.Authors who wish to make a complaint should refer them to the Editor-in-Chief of the journal concerned at lnjpc@lnh.edu.pk.
Article Corrections and Retractions
If there is any error found in published articles, publishers will consider an action needs to be taken and may consult editors and authors' institutions.Errors by publishers is corrected by an erratum and errors by authors may be corrected by corrigendum.
If there is an error that notably affects the conclusion or there is an evidence of wrongdoing, it may be necessary to retract or express concern in accordance with the COPE Retraction Guidelines.
- • Retraction note titled "Retraction: [article title]" (e.g. Retraction: XYZ experiment involving ABC species) may be published in the paginated section of the journal's next scheduled issue and may also listed in the table of contents.
- • Retraction instructions are approved by the editor-in-chief of the relevant journal.
- • The link to the original article shall be displayed in the online version.
- • A screen containing retracted instructions may appear before the article’s electronic version on the website. On the screen, there shall be a link to the full article, i.e. retracted article.
- • The original article’s link may remain the same, but shall have a watermark on its PDF document to make it clear that the article has been retracted.
Disclaimer
Responsibility for the content published by LNHMC in any of its journals, including any opinions expressed therein, rests exclusively with the author(s) of such content. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, LNHMC (on its own behalf, and on behalf of its staff and members of its editorial board) disclaims responsibility for any and all injury and/or damage (whether financial or otherwise) to persons or property, resulting directly or indirectly from any ideas, methods, instructions or products (including errors in the same) referred to in the content of any of LNHMC journals. Any dispute arising, including any claim shall be governed exclusively by the laws of Pakistan.
Repository Policy
Authors keep hold of the copyright of their manuscripts. Consequently they may deposit their accepted as well as published articles on their personal websites/institutional repository like PMC. All articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided that the work is properly cited.
Disclosure
Competing interests other than monetary and any funding (non-financial interests) should be declared if relevant to the reader.