Authors Complaint

Any author that has published online/offline articles  with PPMJ  may have issues and challenges. The readers in various capacities may have objections to the published information and may have complaints against the author/s. However, we are concerned with any issues authors may come across related to those published in PPMJ journal and we are here to listen to your complaints and resolve them.

Author(s) may generally complain about the below-mentioned issues:

Improper Citation
Plagiarism
Authorship
Peer review process
Delay in the review process.
Manipulation in the data
Malpractices related to study/data.
Fabricated information
Violation of ethical practices
Undisclosed conflict of interest
How to identify the issues


Any issues related to unethical research practices related to copyrights, research procedures like methods, data fabrication, etc.,  are generally identified in the review process and the reviewer may seek clarification from the author on all such issues and the article will be accepted for publication only when the author provides satisfactory answers and pieces of evidence.
Complaints may reach the editor or the editorial office against any published information on the above-mentioned aspects and the editorial office, and the editor-in-chief verify all such complaints and resolve the issue.
Authors that submit manuscripts for publication may also complain about the review process or undisclosed conflict of interest of the reviewer or editor and the publisher takes necessary action to enquire about such complaints.
The reader may complain about any published material online and it is our responsibility to look into all such issues carefully.


How do we handle the complaints?
PPMJ requests all the authors that submit manuscripts for publication to carefully go through our editorial policies and strictly adhere to the standard research procedures.


We carefully assess the complaint upon receiving it and investigate it thoroughly by deploying our editorial team and seeking clarification from the author concerned.


We issue standard guidelines for all our reviewers to avoid malpractice.
We keep a vigilant eye on fake reviewers and take all necessary measures to ensure an impartial review process.
If the manuscript is still in the review stage, we will not proceed further until we receive a satisfactory explanation and proof that qualifies the author’s viewpoints.


If the article is already published, we publish corrections if the complaint is valid.
No action/correction will be issued if the complaints are baseless.
We don’t hesitate to retract any article if it is proven of any violation and a notice to this effect will be issued in the succeeding journal issues.


Mode of complaints
Authors and readers can reach us with their complaints by directly mailing us at editor@ppmj.org.pk
All complaints on any aspects mentioned above should be mailed only to the editorial team and should not be mailed to the author directly to resolve the issue.
All complaints will be handled in a transparent manner to uphold the standard and ethical research practices.
We may not be able to initiate actions on any published material or an author on the complaints raised in the public domain.