Submissions

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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 text adheres to the general guidance in Author Guidelines (below) and to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Style Guide.
  • The submission file is in Microsoft Word file format.
  • The instructions in Ensuring a Blind Review have been followed, and the filename of your uploaded file is fully anonymised.
  • Full author addresses and keywords have been provided.
  • The authors undertake to obtain and deliver to the publisher all necessary permissions to reproduce any illustrations such as photographs, diagrams or maps.
  • The authors consent to the publisher's Privacy Policy.
  • The authors agree to meet the journal's standards for publishing ethics .
  • The authors agree to the journal's Preservation Policy.

Author Guidelines

Publishing Standards

The White Horse Press is a small family-run business, but we aspire to standards of academic quality and fair dealing as high as those of the best international scholarly publishers. Please read the guidelines on our website for authors, editors and reviewers regarding what we expect from them, and what they can expect from us. Please also read the specific publishing ethics page for Plant Perspectives, which includes our statement on research misconduct.

The journal provides a forum for original academic papers that are accessible to people from other disciplines, and also those who operate outside the academic community. To this end, contributors should avoid needless technicality. They should also bear in mind the requirements of an international readership when making reference to localised places or events.

Manuscripts should show engagement with ongoing intellectual debates, and awareness of the current literature. Authors should especially make sure they are familiar with papers published in recent issues of Plant Perspectives that are relevant to their topic. Authors should avoid excessive quotation from their own previous works: failure to do so can result in work being classified as self-plagiarism. All quotations from author’s own publications and from outside sources must be acknowledged and fully referenced.

Submissions must be original and not currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. We aim to reach a decision on publication within three months of receipt of the submission.

 

Specific Production Guidelines

  • File Format. Submissions must be uploaded to our online system in Microsoft Word or a Word-compatible format.
  • Word Limit. Unless otherwise agreed, submissions should be between 6,000 and 8,000 words in length including references, unless by prior consultation with the editors. Discussion articles (comments on published papers and author replies) should be no more than 4,000 words and book reviews no more than 1,500 words. Manuscripts of excessive length will not be considered.
  • Page Layout. A4, Times New Roman, 12pt, double spaced. Include tables or figures at the end. Avoid excessive use of subheadings and text formatting for emphasis (underlining, bold, italics).
  • English. Manuscripts should be in English and be of an acceptable standard in that regard (if in doubt please have a native speaker read your manuscript prior to submission).
  • Anonymous Manuscript. To allow blind refereeing, please ensure that your manuscript is anonymous by removing your name and any self-identifying references.
  • Abstract. A summary of around 100–150 words, and a list of four or five ‘key words’ should be provided.
 
Peer Review Guidelines
Peer reviewed articles in Plant Perspectives undergo double-blind peer review, using external, independent experts (some, but by no means all of whom of who may be members of the general editorial board, but none of whom are on the journal's executive editorial team). The normal timeline for peer review is 3 months or less and we ask that authors are prompt in submitting revisions, post-review. Reviewers are requested to consider the following points in their evaluation:
  1. Key argument.
  2. Theoretical and/or empirical contribution.
  3. Robustness of the evidence vis-à-vis the arguments presented.
  4. Problematic gaps or sources of confusion or misunderstanding in the light of the current international scholarship in the field. In case of substantial gaps in the sources, please explain in detail what is missing and why it is crucial for the paper to include it.
  5. What could help in strengthening the paper?
  6. Language and presentation.

 

Article Fees

  • Authors do not need to pay any fees to publish in Plant Perspectives.
  • All articles published on an Open Access basis through the Subscribe to Open model will be open access under a CC BY 4.0 license without author fees.
  • Articles published in volumes that remain gated because they do not reach the S2O threshold will remain gated, and no author fees will apply. However, an author wishing to publish their article Open Access in an otherwise gated volume may, if they wish, pay an APC to unlock their article. 
  • If our preferred S2O model does not prove financially sustainable for the journal, APCs might apply in future, but not for any papers submitted before the end of 2024; in the event that APCs are introduced later, a waiver scheme will be available.

 

Style Guidelines
Please follow the detailed style guidance provided here.

Book Review Guidelines
Authors of book reviews should follow the detailed guidance provided here.
Authors or publishers seeking to have their book reviewed in Plant Perspectives should please send a PDF copy only in the first instance. We may later request a physical copy to be sent direct to our chosen reviewer. Please send the e-copy of your book to our Editor, John C. Ryan, and Reviews Editors, Subarna De.

Special Issues
We welcome special issue proposals. These should be sent to the editors before articles are submitted and should include a summary of the proposed issue and its contribution to interdisciplinary plant studies as well as abstracts of all proposed articles. Please note that the word limit for Special Issues is 60,000 in total, including editorial introduction and abstracts, notes and bibliographies. All papers submitted for a Special Issue will be subject to peer review - this process will be clarified by the editors during initial discussions of your proposal.

Literary and Multimedia Submissions
We welcome submissions across a range of formats other than conventional academic research papers. All work published in Plant Perspectives, including literary and multimedia content, will be made available under a CC BY license and will be archived in Portico and wherever else the journal is preserved. In consultation with peer reviewers, guidelines are evolving for this type of submission. Please contact the editors prior to submission if in doubt. Multimedia hosting or linking arrangements remain in development at a technical level, so please contact the editor or publisher before submitting work that includes audio, video or other non-text formats. Brief notes for common formats are as follows:

   Poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction (up to 2000 words)

   Experimental writings (spells, manifestos, recipes, etc. up to 2000 words)

   Visual art portfolios (10 images max)

   Short films, video essays (under 20 mins)

   Audio works (under 10 mins)

   Multimedia/performance works (under 20 mins)

 

Research Articles

Section default policy

Copyright Notice

Plant Perspectives is an Open Access publication. All articles published in the journal are freely available on this website, and there is no restriction on who may access or share the articles.

Authors of articles published in the journal retain the copyright to their article, making the version of record available under a CC BY 4.0 (Creative Commons) license, which grants authors the most extensive rights including full republication rights. Authors preferring a more restrictive license may request publication under CC BY-NC 4.0, CC BY-ND 4.0 or CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

All articles published by Plant Perspectives are made immediately available worldwide on this website.

Full open access publication of Plant Perspectives means:

  • free and unlimited access to the full-text of all articles published in the Plant Perspectives is available to anyone.
  • provided proper accreditation/citation, everyone is free to re-use published material.
  • peer-reviewed literature is freely available without charge or subscription.
  • literature is immediately available on our website in open access format (without any embargo period).
  • provided a full and correct citation to the original publication is given, published works can be re-used without obtaining permission.
  • Full unrestricted copyright is held by the author(s).
  • Authors retain full unrestricted publication rights.
  • There are no submission or article processing fees.

Please take note of the following important information regarding copyright and originality:

  • Articles must be original and must not have been published elsewhere, in part or in full.
  • Authors, when quoting from someone else's work or when considering reproducing an illustration or table from a book or journal article, should make sure that they are not infringing a copyright. More details.
  • Although in general authors may quote from other published works, they should obtain permission from the holder of the copyright if they wish to quote substantial extracts or reproduce tables, plates or other illustrations. If the copyright-holder is not the author of the quoted or reproduced material, it is recommended that the permission of the author also be sought.
  • Since Plant Perspectives is an Open Access publication, all copyright clearances and other permission requests should clearly specify that the work will be re-printed on an Open Access basis under CC BY 4.0. If the person or company whose material you wish to reproduce cannot or will not authorise this type of usage, then you may need to select some other material to support your article, instead. 
  • Material in unpublished letters and manuscripts is also protected and must not be published unless permission has been obtained.
  • The team at The White Horse Press can advise about copyright clearance and permission issues, but it is generally the author's responsibility to seek and secure appropriate permnissions, and any costs for copyright clearance generally fall to the author.
  • A suitable acknowledgment of any borrowed material must always be made.
  • All articles published in Plant Perspectives are Open Access. They may therefore be reproduced, distributed and shared without limitation and without permission from the publisher, author, or editorial team.
  • On publication, contributors will be sent a a .pdf file of their article, from which they are free to print as many further copies as they require, and to share as widely as they like under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.

Privacy Statement

Personal data entered in this journal management system will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

The publishers comply with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation.   

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