Withdrawal and Retraction Policies

Withdrawal Policy

Journal of Social and Community Development (JSCD) is committed to providing high-quality articles and upholding publication ethics to advance the intellectual agenda of science. We expect our authors to comply with best practices in publication ethics as well as in the quality of their articles.

Few of the authors request withdrawal of the manuscript from the publication process after submission or after publication. In some instances, the request for withdrawal is made when the manuscript is only a few days away from publication in the journal. This may cause time waste by the editors, reviewers, and editorial staff.

To evade the gratuitous withdrawal of manuscripts, JSCD declared the below withdrawal policy. The corresponding author or co-authors should address the below statement before sending a request for withdrawal.

  • All authors, including corresponding and co-authors, should confirm the number of authors, authorship, approval, and integrity of the manuscript before submission. In case of any differences of opinion, address the concerns of all the authors before submitting the manuscript for publication.
  • Research students or Researchers should take prior permission from their guides and professors before sending/submitting their manuscripts to JSCD.
  • Authors should follow the publication ethics (details are included on our publication ethics page.
  • The manuscript is appropriately withdrawn from any previous publisher (if submitted).
  • It is unacceptable to withdraw a manuscript from a journal because it is being accepted by another journal.
  • Before submitting the manuscript, authors should carefully check the facts and data presented in the manuscripts are accurate and error-free.
  • All authors need to agree to publish the articles in the JSCD before submission.

Unethical withdrawal

Withdrawal in the advanced stage of the editorial process, when peer reviews were near completion, was unacceptable unless there were compelling reasons.

If the author withdraws a manuscript after publication, the article publication charges, if paid by the authors, will not be refunded.

If the authors do not reply to the communication from the editorial office, even after multiple reminders, at any stage of the publication process, JSCD holds all rights to disclose the conduct of the authors and the content of the manuscript without further approval from the authors, and cannot be held responsible for the consequences arising from it.

Withdrawal of a manuscript will be permitted only for the most compelling and unavoidable reasons. For withdrawal of a manuscript, authors need to submit an "Article withdrawal Form", signed by all authors mentioning the reason for withdrawal to the Editorial Office. The form is available from the editorial office of the journal. Authors must not assume that their manuscript has been withdrawn until they have received appropriate notification to this effect from the editorial office.

In a case where a manuscript has taken more than six months time for the review process, that allows the author to withdraw the manuscript without paying any charges.

Manuscript withdrawal charges

The author is allowed to withdraw the manuscript without paying any withdrawal penalty if the author(s) requests a withdrawal of the manuscript within 48 hours of submission.

If the author(s) requests a withdrawal of the manuscript after the peer review process or in the production stage (Early Release or Ahead of publishing) or published online, then the authors need to make a withdrawal penalty (50% of the APC).

JSCD Editorial Office will provide the corresponding author with a formal letter of Manuscript Withdrawal. Withdrawal of manuscripts is only allowed after the withdrawal penalty has been fully paid to the JSCD Editorial Office.

As per the policy, we declare that the withdrawal charges are applicable in case of withdrawal.

Withdrawal form

If the author wishes to withdraw a paper from a journal, the author needs to submit an " Article withdrawal Form" signed by all authors (or) the corresponding author of the manuscript stating the reasons for manuscript withdrawal. The form is available here.

Retractions

JSCD follows the COPE Retraction Guidelines. An article may be retracted under the following circumstances:

  • There is clear evidence that the findings are unreliable due to misconduct (e.g., fabrication of the data) or an honest error on the part of the author.
  • The findings have previously been published elsewhere (i.e., cases of redundant publication).
  • The findings or reporting of the findings have been plagiarized.
  • The research has not been conducted in accordance with the relevant ethical procedures.
  • JSCD will work with the editor and author on drafting the retraction notice, which will clearly set out the reasons as to why the article is being retracted.

Expressions of Concern

An Expression of Concern (EoC) may be issued if we are made aware of concerns with a published article, either due to potentially incorrect findings or publication misconduct. We will only issue an EoC if the concerns are well-founded, but investigations have proven inconclusive. We will sometimes issue an EoC if investigations are ongoing and likely to take some time to resolve.

Removal

JSCD upholds the International Association of Scientific, Technical, and Medical Publishers (STM) guidelines on the Preservation of the Objective Record of Science, and we will not withdraw the article unless legally required to do so, i.e.,:

  • The privacy of a research subject has been inappropriately violated.
  • The article contains errors that would result in a risk to the general public if followed.
  • The article makes defamatory comments about others or their work.