Guidelines for Editors

Editorial decisions must remain independent of inappropriate commercial, financial, institutional, personal, or publisher influence.

Manuscripts should be evaluated according to considerations such as relevance to the journal, originality, scholarly contribution, methodological quality, reliability of evidence, research integrity, ethical acceptability, clarity, and suitability for the journal's readership.

Article Processing Charges, advertising, sponsorship, financial arrangements, institutional prestige, personal relationships, submission volume, or revenue objectives must not improperly determine whether an individual manuscript is accepted or rejected.

A manuscript may be declined before external peer review where it is clearly outside the journal's scope, does not meet the journal's minimum scholarly requirements, contains fundamental methodological or ethical problems, substantially fails to follow required article criteria, or is otherwise unsuitable for further consideration.

A desk-rejection decision should be based on legitimate editorial considerations and should not be used to favour or disadvantage authors for inappropriate reasons.

Where practicable, the decision communication should provide a concise and professionally appropriate explanation.

Editors should follow the review model publicly declared by the journal, whether double-anonymised, single-anonymised, open, or another recognised model appropriate to the scholarly field.

The identities concealed or disclosed under the chosen model, the handling of review reports, and any article types exempt from the normal process should be described transparently by the journal.

Editorial practice should remain consistent with the journal's published description of peer review.

An editor must not control the editorial assessment of a manuscript where a material competing interest compromises independent judgement.

Relevant conflicts may be financial, professional, academic, institutional, personal, competitive, supervisory, collaborative, or otherwise capable of affecting impartial editorial handling.

Where a material conflict exists, responsibility should be transferred to another suitably qualified editor who is independent of the manuscript.

Where uncertainty exists, the circumstances should be disclosed to the Editor-in-Chief or other responsible editorial authority.

Where the Editor-in-Chief is an author, co-author, or otherwise materially conflicted, editorial responsibility should be transferred to another qualified and independent editor.

The Editor-in-Chief should have no access to confidential reviewer identities or editorial deliberations beyond what is appropriate for an author under the journal's review model.

The independent handling arrangement should be capable of demonstrating that the conflicted editor did not control the publication decision.

Human editors remain responsible for editorial assessment and decisions.

Editors should not upload unpublished manuscripts, confidential reviewer reports, author correspondence, supplementary files, or substantial confidential manuscript content to public generative AI systems where confidentiality, retention, or downstream use cannot be appropriately controlled.

Generative AI should not replace substantive human editorial judgement or independently determine acceptance or rejection of a manuscript.

Any automated or AI-assisted tool legitimately used in journal operations should remain subject to appropriate human oversight and the applicable Macaw Publications AI & Generative AI Use Policy.

Editors should not transmit discriminatory, threatening, humiliating, abusive, personally derogatory, or otherwise inappropriate reviewer comments to authors without appropriate editorial intervention.

Where useful scholarly content exists within an otherwise inappropriate report, the editor may communicate the substantive issue in an appropriate form.

Serious or repeated reviewer misconduct may justify removing the reviewer from the manuscript and from future reviewer assignments.

Editors should distinguish credible concerns from established findings of misconduct and should avoid premature accusations.

Authors should normally be given an appropriate opportunity to respond to concerns where doing so does not compromise a legitimate investigation.

Where specialist expertise, institutional investigation, or additional documentation is required, the matter may be referred or escalated according to the journal's research integrity procedures.

Editorial action should be proportionate to the available evidence and the effect of the concern on the reliability of the scholarly record.

Editors should assess whether manuscripts contain the ethical, consent, regulatory, privacy, animal-welfare, or other approval information required by the research design and applicable journal policy.

Where information is missing, unclear, inconsistent, or raises a credible concern, the editor may request clarification or relevant supporting documentation before proceeding.

Ethical approval should not be treated as a substitute for editorial assessment of whether the research itself is appropriate for publication.

Editors should assess whether authors have responded adequately to material reviewer and editorial concerns.

A revised manuscript may be returned to the original reviewers, assessed by the editor, or sent for additional specialist review depending on the extent and nature of the revisions.

Authors should not be required to accept reviewer suggestions that would reduce scholarly accuracy merely to obtain publication. Reasoned author responses should be considered on their merits.

Editorial communications should be professional, sufficiently clear, and consistent with the decision recorded in the journal's workflow.

Where revision is required, authors should receive sufficient information to understand the material issues that should be addressed.

Editors should avoid misleading statements concerning guaranteed acceptance, indexing, publication dates, citation outcomes, or other matters outside their legitimate control.

The ability or eligibility of an author to pay must not determine scholarly editorial judgement.

Macaw Publications journals may operate under different journal-specific author-charge models. Editors should not favour manuscripts because they are expected to generate an Article Processing Charge or disadvantage manuscripts because an author qualifies for a waiver or publishes under a no-fee model.

Payment does not purchase favourable review, acceptance, accelerated scholarly assessment, citation, or indexing.

A manuscript authored or co-authored by a Guest Editor should be handled independently of that Guest Editor.

The Guest Editor should not select reviewers, access confidential review information, participate in deliberation, or make the acceptance decision concerning their own manuscript.

The permanent editorial structure of the journal should provide appropriate independent oversight.

Editorial appointments should be reviewed periodically so that the journal's public information remains accurate and the board continues to reflect its scholarly needs.

Inactive, unresponsive, outdated, inappropriate, or unauthorised listings should be corrected or removed.

Material changes in Editor-in-Chief or other senior editorial leadership should be reflected on the journal website without unnecessary delay.

Complaints concerning editorial conduct, conflicts of interest, peer-review integrity, inappropriate communication, confidentiality, policy application, or other editorial matters should be handled according to the journal or publisher complaints procedure.

An editor who is the subject of a complaint should not exercise sole control over the investigation or outcome of that complaint.

Complaints should be assessed fairly, confidentially where appropriate, and on the basis of available evidence.

Where correction or retraction is necessary, editors should ensure that the action is implemented transparently and linked appropriately to the affected publication.

Substantive changes to published scholarly content should not normally be made through silent replacement where a formal correction or other post-publication notice is required.

Article identifiers and publication history should be preserved wherever appropriate so that the development of the scholarly record remains understandable.

Editors should ensure that published scholarly content remains reasonably consistent with the journal's stated aims and scope.

A journal should not expand into unrelated subjects primarily to increase publication volume or fee revenue.

Where the journal's scholarly scope legitimately evolves, the change should be considered formally and reflected accurately in the journal's aims, scope, board expertise, author instructions, and published content.

Appropriate editorial documentation should be retained through the journal's authorised workflow in accordance with applicable operational, privacy, and record-management requirements.

Relevant records may include manuscript submissions, reviewer invitations, reviewer responses, review reports, editorial communications, revisions, decision letters, conflict disclosures, integrity correspondence, and final decisions.

Such records support continuity, accountability, investigation of legitimate concerns, and verification that the journal's stated editorial process is being implemented.

Editors should encourage accurate submission and publication metadata.

Author names, authorship order, affiliations, countries, corresponding-author information, article title, abstract, keywords, funding information, and relevant identifiers should be checked for material inconsistencies before publication.

Affiliation information should reflect genuine institutional relationships and should not be altered merely to improve the apparent international profile of the journal.

Editors may invite appropriate scholarly submissions, reviews, special-issue proposals, or editorial participation where such communication is accurate, relevant, and professional.

Invitations must not falsely imply guaranteed acceptance, guaranteed publication, guaranteed indexing, predetermined editorial outcomes, or institutional endorsement.

Editorial titles and affiliations should not be used in a manner that materially misrepresents the journal's status.

These guidelines should be read together with the applicable Macaw Publications and journal-level policies, including:

Publication Ethics & Research Integrity; Peer Review & Editorial Process; Guidelines for Peer Reviewers; Editorial Independence & Conflict of Interest; AI & Generative AI Use Policy; Special Issues & Guest Editor Policy; Post-Publication Corrections & Retractions; Open Access, Copyright & Licensing; and APC, Publication Charges & Waivers.

Journal-specific editorial matters

Questions concerning an individual manuscript, reviewer assignment, editorial workflow, journal policy, special issue, conflict of interest, appeal, or editorial decision should normally be handled through the responsible editorial office of the relevant journal.

Publisher-level concerns involving editorial independence, serious conflicts of interest, peer-review integrity, editorial misconduct, or these guidelines may be directed to:

Macaw Publications
H.No. 4-123/8/172, Road No. 1, Indraprastha Colony,
Hathiguda, Hayath Nagar, Hyderabad,
Telangana – 501505, India

Email: publisher@macawpublications.com