For authors

Editorial Process

A stages of the editorial process is given in the list below:

  1. Pre-check.
  2. Peer Review.
  3. Revision.
  4. Editor Decision.
  5. Author Appeals.
  6. Production.

 Pre-Check

The pre-screening stage consists of two main steps: a technical pre-check performed by the Editorial Office and an editorial pre-check performed by an Academic Editor.

Immediately after submission, the journal’s Managing Editor will perform a technical pre-check to assess the following:

  • The overall suitability of the manuscript to the journal/section/Special Issue/Topic/Topical Collection;
  • The manuscript’s adherence to high-quality research and ethical standards;
  • The manuscript’s standards of rigor to qualify for further review.

An Academic Editor (i.e., the Editor-in-Chief in the case of regular submissions, the Guest Editor in the case of Special Issue submissions, the Topic Editor in the case of Topic submissions, the Collection Editor in the case of Topical Collection submissions, and an Editorial Board Member in cases of a conflict of interest and regular submissions if the Editor-in-Chief permits) will be notified of the submission and invited to perform an editorial pre-check. During the editorial pre-check phase, the Academic Editor will assess the suitability of the submission with respect to the scope of the journal and to the overall scientific soundness of the manuscript, including the relevance of the references and the correctness of the applied methodology. The Academic Editors can decide to reject the manuscript, request revision before peer review, or continue with the peer review process and recommend suitable reviewers.

The Guest Editors of Special Issues, Topic Editors of Topics, and Collection Editors of Topical Collections are not able to make decisions regarding the submission of their own manuscripts to their Special Issue/Topics/Topical Collection, as this would constitute a conflict of interest. An Editorial Board Member will instead be responsible for the editorial decision-making. The Guest Editor/Topic Editor/Collection Editor will be unable to access the review process except in their role as author. Similarly, Editors-in-Chief or other Editorial Board Members are not able to participate in the review process of their manuscript except in their role as author.

Peer Review (see below)

The peer review process is double-blind peer review, where, in addition to the author not knowing the identity of the reviewer, the reviewer is also unaware of the author’s identity. At least two review reports are collected for each submitted article.

Revision

In cases where only minor or major revision is recommended, Journal’s staff will request that the author revise the paper before referring to the Academic Editor. Where conflicting review reports are present, or where there are one or more recommendations for rejection, feedback from the Academic Editor is sought before a decision about revision is communicated to the authors. Additional reviewers or further review reports may be requested by the Academic Editors at this stage.

Revised versions of manuscripts may or may not be sent to reviewers, depending on whether the reviewer requested to see the revised version. By default, reviewers who request major revision or recommend rejection will be sent the revised manuscript. All reviewers can access the most recent version of the manuscript via Open Journal System.

A maximum of two rounds of major revision per manuscript are normally provided.

For manuscripts that require extensive revision, where the paper status is “Reject and Encourage Resubmission”, authors may choose to resubmit their manuscript to the same journal in their own time upon completion of comprehensive revision. Revised manuscripts submitted to the same journal will be assigned a new manuscript ID and linked to the original submission in our submission system (Open Journal system). Following resubmission, the editorial process will continue as normal. To ensure an efficient and effective peer review process, the same reviewers will be invited to review the resubmitted manuscript.

In the event that the journal’s editorial office is unable to maintain communication with the author during the manuscript review or production process, the journal reserves the right to withdraw the manuscript following a designated period of inactivity.

Editor Decision

Decisions to accept manuscripts can be made by the Chief Editor after peer review once at least two review reports have been received. Acceptance decisions are made by a Chief Editor (the Academic Editor, the Editor-in-Chief, a Guest Editor/Topic Editor/Collection Editor).  Guest Editors/Topic Editors/Collection Editors are not able to make decisions on their own papers; these will instead be assigned to a suitable Editorial Board Member. When making a decision, we expect the Chief Editor to check the following:

  • The suitability of the selected reviewers;
  • The adequacy of the reviewers’ comments and the authors’ response;
  • The overall scientific quality of the paper.

The Chief Editor can make a decision from among the following options: accept in its current form, accept with minor revision, reject and decline resubmission, reject but encourage resubmission, ask the author for a revision, or ask for an additional reviewer.

The Editors should alert the Editorial Office to any potential conflicts of interest that may bias, or be perceived to bias, the decision-making process.

Chief Editors should not recommend excessive citations of their own work (self-citations), of work by close colleagues, of another author’s work (honorary citations), or of articles from the journal in which their manuscript was submitted in order to increase the citations of Academic Editors/authors/the journal. Academic Editors may provide references as needed, but they must clearly improve the quality of the manuscript under review. Any form of citation manipulation is considered a misconduct and a violation of publication ethics. Academic Editors are recommended to read the relevant descriptions in the Citation manipulation discussion document by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Reviewers make recommendations, and the Editors-in-Chief or Academic Editors are free to disagree with their views. If they do so, they should justify their decision for the benefit of the authors and reviewers.

In some instances, an Editor may support the acceptance of a manuscript despite a reviewer recommending that it is rejected. In this scenario, Editorial staff will seek a second independent opinion (double decision) from an Editorial Board Member or the Editor-in-Chief before communicating a final decision to the authors. The double decision, provided by an Editorial Board Member or the Editor-in-Chief, is the final decision.

Articles can only be accepted for publication by an Academic Editor. Employed Editor staff will then inform the authors. Editor staff never make decisions regarding paper acceptance.

Editorial staff and Editorial Board Members (including Editors-in-Chief) are not involved in the processing of their own academic work. Their submissions are assigned and revised by at least two independent reviewers. Decisions are made by other Editorial Board Members who do not have a conflict of interest with the authors.

 We aim to publish only manuscripts that are scientifically correct, and we do not artificially increase journal rejection rates, allowing the wider reader community to define the impact.

 Author Appeals
Authors may appeal a rejection by sending an e-mail to the Editorial Office of the journal. The appeal must provide a detailed justification, including point-by-point responses to the reviewers' and/or editor's comments. Appeals can only be submitted following a “reject and decline resubmission” decision and should be submitted within three months from the decision date. Failure to meet these criteria will result in the appeal not being considered further. The Managing Editor will forward the manuscript and related information (including the identities of the referees) to a designated Editorial Board Member. The Academic Editor being consulted will be asked to provide an advisory recommendation regarding the manuscript and may recommend one of the following decisions: accept, send for further peer review, or uphold the original rejection decision. This decision will then be validated by the Editor-in-Chief. A reject decision at this stage is final and cannot be reversed.

Peer-review Process

The journal «Land Reclamation and Water Management» practices a «double-blind» review process: authors are not told who reviewed their paper, and referees do not know the name of the authors whose papers they review.

We strongly recommend that all reviewers read and adhere COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers.

The procedure for reviewing articles in the journal includes the following stages:

  1. Initial review.The Editor-in-Chief or the Executive Editor evaluates each manuscript to determine whether it meets the journal’s criteria (relevance to the subject area, topicality, and formatting of the article) and checks it for plagiarism using special software. In cases where the Editor-in-Chief has a conflict of interest (is the author or co-author of the article, has family or professional ties with the authors), the initial review is conducted by Deputy Editor or a member of the Editorial Board who does not have a conflict of interest.

Manuscripts that do not pass the initial review are rejected; the author is informed of the decision. If the manuscript meets the requirements of the journal, it is submitted for peer review.

  1. Peer review. Manuscripts that have successfully passed the initial review are sent by e-mail or using Open Journal System for peer review to scientists who have a specialisation close to the subject matter of the article. All personal data of the authors are removed from the texts of the articles beforehand.

All articles are reviewed by at least (usually) two active scientists or more (if necessary); as a rule, reviewers are external; External reviewing involves Ukrainian and foreign doctors of sciences who are specialized in the same scientific field as the authors of the article. The selection of reviewers is based on their experience in a particular field.

In accordance with the principles of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics), the appointment of reviewers for scientific articles is carried out by the editor of the journal (editor-in-chief or deputy editor). The editor-in-chief or deputy editor selects independent experts in the relevant field, avoiding conflicts of interest, to ensure an objective evaluation of the manuscript.

Аnonymous article and a standard review form are attached to the letter. The reviewers cannot be affiliated with the same institution as the author and cannot be in a conflict of interest

The review forms are returned to the editorial board, as a rule, within 20 days of receipt of the material. In case of delays in returning the reviews, the reviewer should inform the Editorial Board by e-mail. If the reviewer has any questions, comments or requests, they will contact the Editorial Board.

According to results of reviewing, the manuscript may be recommended:

- For publication in the original version, i.e. without any changes;

- For publication after making minor changes according to reviewer comments;

- For re-review after significant revisions by the author(s);

- For refusal for publication without further consideration.

After the review, the Executive Editor reviews the reports of the reviewers and in some cases (for example, if the reviews differ significantly) may invite an additional reviewer to obtain an additional opinion before making a decision.

  1. Decision.The Editor-in-Chief, based on the review reports, decides on the acceptance / revision / rejection of the manuscript and informs the authors about it. Depending on the decision, the authors may be provided with comments from the reviewers. In case of refusal for publication without further consideration, no comments are provided to the authors. If the reviewers suggest certain changes (corrections, additions), the authors should take them into account.

If a decision is made to “send for re-review,” the manuscript must be revised and sent for a second round of peer review. Revisions do not guarantee acceptance of the article; if the reviewers consider the changes unsatisfactory, the article will be rejected.

If only minor changes are suggested, such a re-review may be carried out by the Editor-in-Chief.

If the author submits objections to the results of the review, providing his/her reasonable arguments and explanations, the Editor-in-Chief and/or the Executive Editor will check the author’s objections and inform him/her of the result.

If the reviewers' recommendation for the article is a rejection or revision, they must provide a written, reasoned explanation of the reasons for such a decision. Reviews signed by the reviewers with a conventional or electronic signature are stored in the editorial office for 3 years from the date of publication of the issue of the journal in which the reviewed article is published.

The Editor-in-Chief makes the final decision to publish the manuscript in the journal, taking into account all recommendations, arguments and compliance with the journal’s requirements. The Editor-in-Chief does not participate in decision-making on articles in which he or she has a conflict of interest. All such articles are independently reviewed without the participation of the Editor-in-Chief; the final decision in this case is made by the Deputy Editor-in-Chief.

 A typical peer review deadline 2-4 weeks

Median time to first decision 4-8 weeks

Provision on the procedure of reviewing and accepting the articles submitted (download .docx)

Submission Preparation Checklist
As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
  • The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
  • The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, or RTF document file format.
  • Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
  • The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
  • The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
Author Guidelines

Author Guidelines Recommended guidelines include bibliographic and formatting standards alongside examples of common citation formats to be used in submissions.

Instructions for authors to submit manuscripts to the Journal “Land Reclamation and Water Management”

         When preparing a scientific article for professional editions, collections of conferences, and scientific journals, one should comply with the requirements of the State Attestation Commission of Ukraine (SAC) under the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. For an article to be published, an electronic set of documents should be submitted using the editorial system. The set of documents should include:

  • Information about the authors (Information_author.doc);
  • Extended abstract of the article in English, ranging from 1800 to 4000 printable characters, including spaces;
  • The full-length article in Ukrainian ((Article_Author.doc)
  • The full-length article in English (Article_Eng_Author.doc)

Information about authors

Information about authors should be sent in a separate file, indicating first and last name, the full name of the affiliation, position, academic degree and title, ORCID ID, URL of author's GOOGLE SCHOLAR profile, postal address, telephone number and e-mail of each co-author of the article;
The author`s contacts for the exchange of correspondence should be marked by underlining the full name of the author and his e-mail.

 Requirements for the presentation of an extended summary in English (Abstract)

An extended summary in English shall represent an original text, ranging from 1800 to 4000 printable characters, including spaces ;
The summary in English shall include the following:

  • title of an article, last names of the authors, name of the affiliation, the authors` e-mails;
  • relevance of the research;
  • purpose and targets of the research;
  • methods and techniques of the research;
  • results of the research and key conclusions;
  • prospects – information on a correlation between the result of the research and other scholars` conclusions, prospects of the research as well as the areas for further activities;
  • keywords;

Review articles should be divided into arbitrary thematic sections as conceived by the authors, with a mandatory Discussion of the review results.

Summary and keywords are subject to verification to prevent technical translation by software, since manuscripts will be available on the Internet, bibliographic (scientific and metric) databases, data portals, and online libraries. No copy of any parts of the text is permitted.
It is worth noting that a Summary, drawn up in languages, other than the language of an article, is provided for scholars, not speaking the language of the article, and is, as a rule, the only source of information about the content of the article and results of the research, set forth therein.
When drafting a summary the following should be kept in mind:
– summary is a brief precise outline of the content of the article, including basic factual data and conclusions. Conclusions may be supported by recommendations, evaluations, proposals, and hypotheses set out in the material;
– the text of the summary has to be concise and precise without any minor information;
– the summary shall provide the main content of the article, which in some cases allows to do without reading the whole material;
– summaries are used in information systems (including automatic ones) of document and information research;
– one of the reliable patterns for summary drafting consists of a brief review of an article`s structure, including its introduction, purpose and tasks, methods, results and conclusions.

Requirements for a scientific article layout

  • Ready-to-print articles shall be in Ukrainian and English, not published before, and not submitted to other editions (including electronic ones). Article manuscripts, submitted to the editorial office of the “Land Reclamation and Water Management” journal shall be properly processed and comply with the requirements of the State Attestation Commission for professional publications and correspond to the collection specialty.
  • Article manuscripts sent to the editorial office by e-mail should range from 5 to 8 pages (for young researchers – from 3 to 5 pages) and include references, tables (no more than 4), figures (no more than 4 ones in Word for Windows -03, WRITE word). The title of an article shall contain only the author`s surname (if there is more than one author, the title shall contain the first author`s surname)

According to the requirements of the State Attestation Commission of Ukraine under the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, an original article in a professional edition shall be comprised of the following chapters:

  • Problem statement;
  • Relevance of the research;
  • Correlation between an author`s work and major scientific and practical tasks;
  • Analysis of recent research and publications;
  • Determination of unresolved pieces of a general problem, covered by the article;
  • Innovativeness;
  • Methodological or general academic value;
  • Presentation of basic material;
  • Conclusions;
  • Prospects for using results of the research.

An article shall be processed in WORD-03, WRITE word processor (Times New Roman font, single-line spacing). Page setup: A4 format (210 mm×297mm), margins – 2 cm. Pages are not numbered.

Article structure

  1. UDC index (font size – 14, left-alignment, bold)
  2. Title of an article (no paragraph indention, center alignment, single-line spacing, in capital letters (Times New Roman font, font size 14, bold). The title shall be concise and reflect the contents of the article.
  3. Names of authors/co-authors (12 font size, bold, ); academic degree and title  (12 font size, small letters), in a line, no paragraph indention, left-alignment. 

If a work is done under the direct supervision of an academic adviser, it shall be noted further under the text of the first page; his academic degree, title and surname with initials shall be indicated. Contact details of the author for correspondence is highlighted by underlining his full name and e-mail address.

  1. Affiliation, e-mail address of authors (10 font size, italics), post address, ORCID ID ;
  2. Summary in Ukrainian (230-270 words (from 1800 to 2300 printable characters, including spaces), no paragraph idention, alignment justified, 12 font size, italics, single-line spacing)
  3. Keywords and phrases (4-8), left-alignment, 12 font size, single-line spacing)
  4. Hereinafter the structured text of an article is presented (14 pt, alignment justified, single spacing)
    • The relevance of the study – a problem statement is formulated; scientific innovativeness and value of the study, existing problems, and ways of their solution in the context of scientific objectives are highlighted.
    • Analysis of recent research and publications is a brief analytical review of the results of other researchers` studies; problematic issues should be determined; an author`s work should be related to major scientific and practical tasks.
    • Purpose of the research – the purpose, and tasks of the research should be indicated.
    • Materials and methods of the research – main methods and techniques, applied in the article should be highlighted.
    • Results of the research and their discussion – the main results of the research, presented in the article, should be described.
    • Conclusions – key conclusions concerning the findings of the study, prospects for their application, and their relation to further studies should be presented.
    • A list of references (not less than 10 references) should be given in the order of referring in the text mentioning or in alphabetical order (font size 12, single spacing, left-alignment).
    • References (equivalent to the “list of references”, processed according to the APA standard). The list of sources used is limited to 40 items for original research and from 70 to 100 items for a review article.
    • Summary in  English (230-270 words (from 1800 to 2300 printable characters, including spaces), with authors’ names and article title, translated, 12 font size, single spacing).

    The list of references is processed according to the State Standard of Ukraine 8302:2015; the list is followed by references in English (References), processed according to international standard АРА (which is applied for posting manuscripts in scientific and metric bases). The standard, used in the United States as a standard for processing articles (including bibliography) and adopted by APA, is INTERNATIONAL. To facilitate article processing according to the standard it is recommended to follow this reference http://www.slovnyk.ua/services/translit.php

   Transliteration of Ukrainian symbols shall be carried out according to the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine Regulation № 55 dated of 27 January 2010. Russian symbols shall be transliterated according to BGN/PCGN system.

Examples for processing various types of sources according to the proposed standards are given in Annex 1.

An example of processing a scientific article is given in Annex 2.

Physical value units used in a publication shall comply with the CI system. At the end of the manuscript the full name of the organization, where the work was done, as well as the date of its submission to the editorial office shall be indicated.

The article in English shall be submitted in a separate file to be posted on the website of the Collection (http://mivg.iwpim.com.ua/) according to the requirements of the State Attestation Commission of Ukraine (SAC) under the Ministry of Education and Science concerning professional editions. Articles without translation in English is not acceptable.

FORMULA, GRAPHIC AND TABLE FORMAT

Formulas are made in the editor of Microsoft Equation 3.0. The formulas should be given in a separate line with a 1 cm left indentation, the numbering is followed sequentially by Arabic numerals in round brackets on the right side of the page with alignment on the right edge. Additional indents before and after formulas should not be done.

Table and graphic material can only be in a book format, and its number is relevant. The table should have a serial number, indicated to the left before the name of the table. The table title should be put over the table (Times New Roman font, 14 pt., line spacing - 1, alignment justified), wherein the word "Table" or "Tab." should not be put before the title of the table, only its numbering, in case there are more than one table in the text is not one. The text of the table is in Times New Roman, 12 pt, line spacing - 1.

Tables and illustrations are numbered sequentially in Arabic numerals.

Figures and photographs (black and white, with grayscale colors) are integrated into the main text of the article and are presented as a separate file in one of the following formats: TIFF, PCX, JPG, BMP, CDR. The drawings should be made in a format that provides a clear transfer of all parts, at a scale of 1: 1 or 2: 1. The figures should have only numeric and alphanumeric symbols, the explanatory text is placed in the subtitles to the figures.

Signatures for illustrations, figures, graphs, diagrams, etc. should be given in Times New Roman font, 14 pt., Italics, under the image and should begin with the word Fig.1, followed by the title of the picture. Notes to the table should be given after the table. The word "Note" should be written with capital letters (Times New Roman, 12 pt., Italics), the text of the note (Times New Roman, 12 pt.). It is not advisable to use vertical column inscriptions. Signatures for tables and illustrations should be centered.

 Grounds for refusal to consider the article:

  1. lack or incompleteness of any structural element of the article;
  2. absence of contact information;
  3. absence of UDC;
  4. absence of the list of references;
  5. non-compliance of the article length to the requirements (less than 5 pages or more than 8 pages without the main structural elements);
  6. insufficient length of annotations (less than 50 words);
  7. insufficient length of extended annotation in English submitted in a separate file (less than 1800 characters);
  8. insufficient number of references (less than 10);
  9. the article has already been published in another edition (including electronic publications and the Internet).

 The editorial board reserves the right to make some edits and reductions, as well as the right to the literary correction of the article (preserving the conclusions and style of the author). The papers, that are not in line with the following requirements regarding the order of submission and preparation of a scientific article, will not be considered by the editorial board. In case of refusing to publish the paper, the manuscripts are not given back to the authors.

Reasons for refusal
• Borrowing without specifying a source
• The article was already published in another edition (including electronic editions and Internet).
• The article is framed in non-compliance with the requirements
• A significant discrepancy in links to text.
• Absence or incompleteness of any component of metadata / contact information / postal address
• Absence of a review (recommendation, assignment, reference) of the scientific adviser, certified with a signature and seal (only for authors that have no academic degree).
• Absence of UDC / JEL
• Absence of the list of references.
• Insufficient volume of abstract (less than 0.5 pages)
• Insufficient volume of the list of references (less than 8 entries).
• Categorical negative conclusion of a reviewer.
Reconsideration of article and response to reviewer’s comments
For repeated viewing of Your document and respond to comments of the reviewers:
– Please note all comments provided by the editor and reviewer;
– Describe any changes in Your article in response to the letter;
– Do all additional tests that are recommended by the reviewer (if You are sure that these changes will not make Your article better, give a detailed justification, why You think so);
– In a reverse letter separately describe all the moments in which You agree with the reviewer and did not agree;
– Provide a polite and scientific justification of all the points with which You disagree;
– Clearly indicate all changes to Your documents that You have made (highlight);
– Return the revised manuscript and a letter back within the period prescribed by the editor.

The refusal to publish
The author can choose another journal in the following cases:
– the editor responded that the subject work does not meet the scope of the journal,
– editor to reject the manuscript without the right of re-granting,
– the manuscript was given failure even after answering all the corrections and comments of the reviewer,
– was rejected by two reviewers.
If the review process of the manuscript takes much more time than is necessary for this journal, and editors can speed up the process, in this case, it is very important to notify the editor about what You take away from the wording of the manuscript, before submitting it to another journal.

The questions according articles' submission should be sent to the following e-mail address:  journal.iwpim@gmail.com.

 The final decision on publication is made by the editorial board, which also reserves the right to additional review, editing and rejection of the submitted papers.

Privacy Statement

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