EDITORIAL POLICY

Peer review

Before the publication, all articles sent to the Brazilian Journal of Plastic Surgery go through a review and arbitration process to guarantee their quality standard and the exemption in selecting works to be published. Initially, the secretariat evaluates the article to verify that it is complete and following the publication rules.

All papers are submitted to peer review by at least two reviewers. Acceptance is based on originality, significance and scientific contribution. The reviewers fill out a form in which they make a rigorous assessment of all the items that make up the work. In the end, they make general comments about the work and give their opinion on whether it should be published or corrected according to the recommendations. With this data, the Editor makes the final decision. In case of discrepancies between the evaluators, a new opinion may be requested for a better judgment. When the reviewers suggest changes, they are sent to the main author and the new version is sent back to the reviewers to verify that the suggestions/requirements have been met. The sending of a study may or may not be sent back to the original reviewer at the Editors' discretion. In exceptional cases, when the manuscript's subject so requires, the Editor may request the collaboration of a professional who is not on the Editorial Board's list to make the assessment (ad hoc reviewers). This entire process is carried out through the electronic submission system. The evaluation system is double-blind, ensuring anonymity throughout the evaluation process. Regardless of the result, authors have access to all assessments and questionnaires that are available in the electronic submission system. The dates of receipt and approval of the article for publication are informed in the published article to respect the authors' priority interests. The RBCP suggests to its editors and reviewers that they become familiar with and act according to the relevant best practice guidelines on peer review and follow the guidelines proposed by the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Review https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines-new/cope-ethical-guidelines-peer-reviewers.

 

Openness in peer review
 

The RBCP, following the recommendations of good practices in open science and transparency in evaluations, supports open peer review, making it possible to include in the approved article: the name of the editor responsible for evaluating the manuscript; to offer the referees and the corresponding author the opening of their respective identities; offer reviewers the option of publishing the review in the journal as a communication identified with DOI and capable of being indexed and cited with or without identifying the reviewer as the author.
 

Research with Humans and Animals

Research involving humans or animals must be approved by relevant Research Ethics Committees (CEP) and must comply with international ethical and legal standards for research. Authors must respect the human participants' right to privacy and obtain the necessary consent to publish before submission. Research projects in human beings must comply with the Declaration of Helsinki as revised in 2013 (https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects/)  and studies carried out in Brazil must follow Resolutions 466/2012 (http://conselho.saude.gov.br/resolucoes/2012/Reso466.pdf) and Resolution 510/2016 (http://conselho.saude.gov.br/resolucoes/2016/ Reso510.pdf), in addition to Circular Letter No. 166/2018 (http://conselho.saude.gov.br/images/comissoes/conep/documentos/CARTAS/CartaCircular166.pdf) by the National Health Council. It is linked to the approval of the study by the Research Ethics Committee. Investigations on animal models must comply with the rules applicable to these procedures, as specified in the Basel Declaration (www.basel-declaration.org), in the ARRIVE guidelines - Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments (https://arriveguidelines.org/arrive-guidelines) and the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (Institute of Laboratory Animal Resources, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, USA). The Editorial Board of the Journal may refuse articles that do not strictly comply with the ethical precepts of the research, whether in humans or animals. Authors must identify precisely all drugs and chemicals used, including the names of the active ingredient, dosages and forms of administration. They should also avoid commercial or company names.

 

Clinical trial registration

The RBCP supports the World Health Organization (WHO) and International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) clinical trial registration policies and recognizes the importance of these initiatives for the international registration and dissemination of information on open access clinical trials. Therefore, to qualify for publication, clinical trials should be registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov or an equivalent international repository before the beginning of data collection, and the identification number should be added to the end of the Abstract.

Within this context, the RBCP adopts the definition of clinical trial recommended by the WHO, which can be summarized as follows: "any research that prospectively designates humans for one or more interventions to assess their effects on health-related outcomes. Interventions include drugs, cells and other biological products, surgical, radiological procedures, devices, behavioral therapies, changes in care processes, preventive care, etc.“

 

Authorship and Contribution Criteria

The criteria for authoring the articles should follow the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and- contributors.html). Only those people who contributed directly to the intellectual content of the work should be listed as authors. Authors must satisfy all of the following criteria to be able to have public responsibility for the content of the work:
1. Have conceived and planned the activities that led to the work or interpreted the results to which they arrived, or both;
2. Have written the work or revised the successive versions and participated in the review process;
3. Have approved the final version;
4. Agree to be responsible for all aspects of the work and ensure that issues related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are properly investigated and resolved.
 
We consider the corresponding author to be the person who handles the manuscript and correspondence during the publication process. We request that the corresponding author confirm that he has the authority to act on behalf of all co-authors in all matters relating to the publication of the manuscript, including supplementary material. The corresponding author is responsible for obtaining such agreements and informing co-authors of the manuscript's status during the submission, review and publication process. In addition, the corresponding author is the main contact for any questions (including those related to the work's integrity) after the publication of the article.
 
 It is mandatory to include the ORCID ID for all authors (https://orcid.org/signin), and a letter must be attached to the system with the ORCID ID of all authors to the electronic submission system.
 
 The Committee on Publication Ethics (Cope) also provides comprehensive resources on authorship and authorship disputes, and we recommend everyone involved in editorial decisions become familiar with these resources.
 
 We have adopted initiatives that allow transparency in authorship and contribution, such as the CRediT taxonomy.
 
 People who do not fulfill the requirements above and who had purely technical or general support participation can be cited in the Acknowledgments section.
 

Preprints 

RBCP accepts the submission of manuscripts previously deposited in preprint servers recognized by the journal and in institutional or subject repository. Preprints are manuscripts ready for submission to a journal and are deposited on an open access web server prior to or in parallel with journal submission for evaluation for formal publication as a peer-reviewed article.

 

Plagiarism and Duplicity

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is defined as "using ideas, words, data or other material produced by another person without recognition".

Plagiarism can occur concerning all types of sources and means of communication, including:

• text, illustrations, musical quotes, extended mathematical derivations, computer code, etc.;
• material downloaded from websites or taken from manuscripts or other media;
• published and unpublished material, including lectures, presentations and gray literature.

We do not tolerate plagiarism in any of our publications, and we reserve the right to verify all submissions through Similarity Check/iThenticate (http://www.ithenticate.com) to ensure originality. Submissions containing suspected plagiarism, in whole or in part, will be rejected. If plagiarism is discovered after publication, we will adopt retraction following COPE's Retraction Guidelines (https://publicationethics.org/retraction-guidelines). We hope that our readers, reviewers and editors will mention any suspicions of plagiarism by sending an e-mail to rbcp@cirurgiaplastica.org.br.

Duplicate and redundant publishing

Duplicate or redundant publication, or "self-plagiarism", occurs when work, or substantial parts of a work, is published more than once by the author (s) of the work without good cross-reference or justification for the overlap. It can be in the same language or a different language. We do not support substantial overlaps between publications unless:

• it is considered that, editorially, this will strengthen the academic discourse;
• have the explicit approval of the original publication;
• Include a quote from the original source.

We advise our readers, reviewers and editors to mention any suspicions of duplicate or redundant publication by sending an e-mail to rbcp@cirurgiaplastica.org.br.

When authors submit their studies to the RBCP, these manuscripts should not be considered, accepted for publication or in press in a different journal, book or similar entity.

 

Conflicts of Interest and Financing

We guarantee that any publication on the Brazilian Journal of Plastic Surgery is free from undue influence. Authors who submit an article must declare any potential conflicts of interest that may interfere with the objectivity or integrity of a publication, stating whether the authors' institution at any time received payment or third-party service of any kind for the submitted work (including, but not limited to, funds, data monitoring committee, study type, manuscript preparation, statistical analysis, financial support for travel to meetings relevant to the study or other reasons, consulting fee, payment for writing or reviewing the manuscript, etc).

Conflicts of interest are situations that may exert undue influence on the presentation, review or publication of a work. They can be of a personal, commercial, political, academic or financial nature. Authors must include, as a supplementary file to the manuscript, a declaration of potential conflicts of interest of the authors. If accepted, this information will be published in the final version of the article. We also hope that anyone who suspects an undisclosed conflict of interest concerning a work published in the RBCP will inform us by sending an e-mail to rbcp@cirurgiaplastica.org.br.

 

Language

Articles should be written in English and Portuguese. Authors should follow current spelling guidelines and use simple, technical, and precise language; informal language should be avoided. The English version, when available, should be submitted to expedite publication. The printed version of the articles is published in Portuguese, whereas the electronic version of the articles is published in Portuguese and English, both in XML and PDF.
 

Retractions and Errata

The journal's editors will consider retractions and errata following COPE's Retraction Guidelines (https://publicationethics.org/retraction-guidelines). If it is found that the author or RBCP made an error, the magazine will issue an errata. Retractions are generally reserved for articles with flaws so serious that their findings or conclusions should not be trusted. Manuscripts Accepted by the RBCP may make minor changes, such as those likely to occur during composition or review. Still, any substantive corrections will be made following the COPE Disclaimer.

 

Image Manipulation, Counterfeiting and Fabrication

When survey data is collected or presented as images, modifying these images can sometimes misrepresent the results obtained or their meaning. We recognize that there may be legitimate reasons for modifying images. Still, we hope that authors will avoid modifying images when this leads to falsification, fabrication or misrepresentation of their results.

 

Fraudulent Research and Misconduct in Research

When we are informed about fraudulent research or research misconduct by an author of the Brazilian Journal of Plastic Surgery, our first concern is the integrity of the published content. The Editor, co-editors, and associate editors will open an investigation to ascertain the facts. Any publication that contains fraudulent results will be withdrawn, or an errata will be issued. See the Disclaimers and Errata section of these guidelines for more information.

 

Versions and Adaptations

The RBCP does not modify existing published content, nor does it originate new materials to meet political or ideological requirements when we believe that these compromise the quality, effectiveness or accuracy of the materials or conflict with our Code of Ethics. We grant volume licenses and subsidiary rights to third parties that allow the reproduction, reuse or adaptation of our content in different contexts, languages and territories. When we license volume rights, our authors and we retain the right to refuse approval for publication if we doubt the integrity and accuracy of the licensed edition.

 

Slander, Defamation and Freedom of Speech

Freedom of expression is fundamental to us as academic editors, but we do not support the publication of false statements that damage the reputation of individuals, groups or organizations. Our legal team can advise on defamation reviews before publication and deal with any defamation allegations eventually published in the RBCP.

 

Transparency

We strive to follow COPE's Principles of Transparency and Best Practices in Academic Publications (https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines-new/principles-transparency-and-best-practice-scholarly-publishing) and encourage our publication partners to defend these same principles.

Authors are encouraged to make available all content (data, program codes and other materials) underlying the manuscript text before or at the time of publication through a Data Availability Declaration that must be entered into the RBCP submission system. The Data Availability Statement should signal where the data associated with a document is available and under what conditions (licenses) the data can be accessed, including links (where applicable) to the dataset. Exceptions are allowed in cases of legal and ethical issues. The objective is to facilitate the evaluation of the manuscript and, if approved, to contribute to the preservation and reuse of the contents and the reproducibility of the research. The initiative increases transparency, enables compliance with data policies, encourages good scientific practice and trusts in published studies.

 

Registry Integrity

We keep a record of the existence of everything we publish with information (metadata) that describes each publication. Whenever we have to change the publication record, as in the case of research misconduct leading to retraction of a publication, we preserve the academic record as far as possible.
We apply these same principles to our marketing and do not modify or manipulate publications in our marketing activities.
When an article is accessed on our portal (www.rbcp.org.br), we provide it only in its entirety, which does not have the right to change its content in a way that is inconsistent with the licensing terms under which it was published.

 

Marketing Communication

Social media and e-mail communication are powerful tools to disseminate and interact with our publications, reach new readers, and keep content alive. However, such communication should not be made at the expense of the integrity of the content. We reserve the right to reject or remove any ad when we doubt that it violates these Research Publication Ethics Guidelines. We also advertise our products and services to customers. We do this following our Privacy Policy, data protection regulations, the Advertising Standards Authority Guidance on Publication Marketing and our internal compliance procedures.

Final considerations

Other decisions regarding the ethics, misconduct, and integrity of scientific research are based on the Code of Conduct guidelines for Journal Editors (COPE), available at http://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf, and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), available at http://www.wame.org