About the Journal

Focus and Scope

MSJ publishes, in English, original scientific articles, review articles and short communications, with the purpose of disseminating and facilitating the access to interdisciplinary investigations, in particular in Agricultural, Human, Biological, Health and Environmental Sciences. However, the journal accepts submissions on other areas of knowledge, such as Exact and Earth Sciences, Engineering, Applied Social Sciences, and Arts.

Peer Review Process

The articles submitted to MSJ go through three stages of evaluation during the editorial process: 1) Formatting - carried out by the executive secretary; 2) Admission - carried out by the associate editors; 3) Scientific value - carried out by anonymous ad-hoc reviewers.

In the Formatting stage, the paper is evaluated in terms of meeting the objectives of the Section which it was sent to and its adequacy to the journal's rules. After being approved in this first stage, the paper goes to the Admission evaluation, carried out by the associate editors in order to verify the classification of the article to the thematic lines of MSJ, its relevance and scientific contribution to the area. Papers that fail to meet any of the requirements are rejected.

In the Scientific value stage the paper is sent to at least three referees from institutions other than the author(s)'s institution and with qualification and research experience in the subject of the paper. The evaluation is done in the double-blind review system. The appointment of referees is the responsibility of the editorial board in order to, above all, avoid possible conflicts or incompatibilities that hinder the assessment. The referees have, on average, four weeks to send the evaluation of the article, being able to approve, request modifications or refuse the work.

 

Stages of the article evaluation process

A - Formatting

This step verifies that the paper:

1. fits the objectives of the Section to which it was sent;

2. complies with the MSJ Publication Rules;

3. if there is no identification of the authors in the body of the text;

 

B – Admission

The Admission assessment is carried out by the editors who check that the article fits the MSJ's thematic lines, its relevance and scientific contribution to the area.

C– Scientific value

At this stage, the reviewers analyze the following aspects:

1. relevance of the paper's theme to the areas of interest of MSJ;

2. quality and originality of the paper, highlighting its strengths and possible weaknesses;

3. adequacy of the theoretical framework and methodological approach;

4. contextualization in the state of the art of the knowledge already established on the theme;
5. clarity as to objectives and results.

Publication Frequency

Multi-Science Journal publishes one issue per year, in continuous flow. An average of 15 articles are published per issue.

Open Access Policy

This journal offers immediate free access to its content, following the principle that making scientific knowledge freely available to the public provides greater worldwide democratization of knowledge.

Publication ethics and publication malpractice

Following guidelines by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) stimulating the identification of the practice of plagiarism, bad practices, frauds, possible violations in Ethics and indicting, the editorial board of MSJ suggests:

1. Authors to visit the COPE website http://publicationethics.org for information on Ethics in research;

2. Authors to explicitly refer to data or results from other published works;

3. Authors to quote critical opinions from other published works as they are;

4. authors to observe the authorship criteria so that a person who did not directly contribute with the scientific investigation should not appear as author;

5. the above criteria to be complied with the following procedures:

a)  Editors will evaluate manuscripts by CrossCheck system immediately after submission. Contents of the scientific articles will be evaluated to identify any sort of plagiarism, double submissions, already published articles and possible frauds in research;

b)  The editorial board will decide whether the manuscript is able to be sent for peer review;

c) After acceptance and prior to publication, the article may again be assessed.