About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Peer Review Process

The contribution received through the journal's platform is analyzed to determine if it complies with the authors' guide, format, approach and scope by the editorial committee made up of the Technical Editor, the Deputy Editor, the Editor-in-Chief and the Associate Editors. In addition, the percentage of similarity is evaluated to establish possible plagiarism or self-plagiarism. If the contribution meets the aforementioned requirements, the Deputy Editor or the Editor-in-Chief assigns it based on their expertise to an Associate Editor, whose function is to send it to three specialist reviewers on the subject (peer review), in the form called double blind (the author does not know the reviewers and vice versa). Subsequently, based on the reviewers' decision, the Associate Editor will determine if it is accepted with minor changes, major changes or if it is rejected. In case of being accepted with changes, the author must make them and the associate editor will determine if the pertinent changes were made.

The objective of the peer review process in Terra Latinoamericana is to maximize the quality of the manuscript while guaranteeing the authors' rights to submit their work for a rigorous, constructive, and transparent review process. Peer review is carried out by active researchers and academics, carefully appointed by the Editorial Committee of the journal in accordance with strict criteria of excellence, and who certify the precision and validity of the research with their names in the published article. Peer review focuses on objective criteria for the validity and quality of the work presented. Likewise, it is rigorous, fair, constructive, responsible, and transparent for all those involved. Of course, peer review should be efficient. Efficiency is achieved by developing on the OJS platform, an online, collaborative discussion forum between authors, reviewers, and the responsible associate editor and providing comprehensive quality service to all participants in the review process. All contributions, without exception, undergo the same rigorous review process. Peer review is carried out by active researchers and academics, carefully appointed by the Editorial Committee of the journal in accordance with strict criteria of excellence, and who certify the precision and validity of the research with their names in the published article. Peer review focuses on objective criteria for the validity and quality of the work presented. Likewise, it is rigorous, fair, constructive, responsible, and transparent for all those involved. Of course, peer review should be efficient. Efficiency is achieved by developing on the OJS platform, an online, collaborative discussion forum between authors, reviewers, and the responsible associate editor and providing comprehensive quality service to all participants in the review process. All contributions, without exception, undergo the same rigorous review process.

Terra Latinoamericana has maintained strict quality standards for manuscripts and the peer review process through clear criteria. When a manuscript exceeds the criteria, it is accepted and rejected when it does not exceed them. Terra Latinoamericana's peer review process judges the value and validity of submitted studies through rigorous quality controls. Associate Editors are accredited to make content decisions; they are charged with recommending rejection at any time; they make the acceptance decisions, and any decision is notified to the Editor-in-Chief. The Format Editor, with the team of Technical Editors, can also reject those manuscripts that due to some involuntary errors of omission were not previously rejected, thereby ensuring that the peer review was rigorous and that the publication is of high quality.

Transparent review. To ensure rigorous and objective reviews, the identities of the reviewers remain anonymous during the review process. The name of the Associate Editor remains visible throughout the arbitration process. The process allows reviews to be conducted in a constructive manner, with associate editors and reviewers having a level of responsibility and accountability for the document by providing rigorous feedback that provides a publication of the highest quality.

Rigorous review. Terra Latinoamericana provides a review questionnaire template that is located on the OJS platform, with the purpose of systematically conducting reviews in this template. The review focuses solely on the quality of both the research and the manuscript and aims to provide constructive comments to bring the final article to a better quality. This process allows for a fair, rapid, complete, and comparable research evaluation.

Acceptance criteria. The quality standards of a manuscript that allow the Editorial Committee and the reviewers of Terra Latinoamericana to accept a publication, is based mainly on basic criteria for the publication of scientific studies, such as clear and adequate language and presentation, for example, complying with editorial standards presentation of tables and figures; the manuscript must be in accordance with the editorial and ethical standards of Terra Latinoamericana; the methodology must be transparent and correct, with a well-established experimental design, correctly applied statistical analyzes and a detailed description of the study materials; The bibliographic references must be sufficient, recent and with coverage relevant to the main subject of the manuscript, which must consider a hypothesis and a specific question, with a relevant theory on the subject of study.

Rejection criteria. Basically, a contribution can be rejected at any stage before the paper is published, even during initial validation, peer review, final validation and, if problems are identified at a late stage, also after acceptance. In general terms, those manuscripts that do not meet the acceptance criteria should be rejected; However, it is important to establish clarity in the rejection criteria that are mainly limited to the following: when the manuscript does not conform to editorial and ethical policies, for example, it is not original, it is duplicated, it is plagiarized or self-plagiarized; the presentation in terms of the language is not of sufficient quality for the review process to be carried out strictly and rigorously; there are errors in the methodology, for example, the experimental design is not correct, the statistical analyzes are not appropriate for the study data and in this matter, the collaboration of the Statistical Editors of Terra Latinoamericana is essential; the presentation of the manuscript does not allow to elucidate if there is a hypothesis or research question with scientific validity, that is, the research question is pseudoscientific; the conclusions are not in accordance with the objectives or are biased by incorrect analysis; references in the text do not reflect the current state of knowledge in the study area or are very local, that is, the access to references is not possible; the study carried out violates the ethical policies not only of Terra Latinoamericana, but also those internationally recognized, for example, privacy protection, studies with living beings, among others; evidence is presented in the results obtained whose precision and reliability is very low, with the possibility that the data were falsified or fabricated and that the tables, figures and images present fraudulent manipulation.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Grant support details

Authors submitting their contributions to Terra Latinoamericana are required to provide appropriate acknowledgment to the sources of funding for their research.

Appropriate citations to the literature

Terra Latinoamericana requires authors that in all contributions submitted to the OJS platform must grant adequate recognition to the literature that encompasses the subject of the submitted contribution.

Ethical Guidelines

The Journal Terra Latinoamericana is committed to respecting and complying with the principles of transparency and good practices in academic publications in accordance with the Committee on Publications Ethics (COPE, for its acronym in English. https://publicationethics.org/) and is governed by his principles. In general terms, Terra Latinoamericana's code of ethics refers to the integrity of the Editorial Committee, the Reviewers, the Member of the Mexican Society of Soil Science, the Authors, and under this argument, Terra Latinoamericana forces the Editorial Committee and the reviewers to act with objectivity and transparency in the process of review, to the Authors that their manuscripts are authentic and original and all those involved are required not to incur in scientific fraud. 

Terra Latinoamericana and its Editorial Committee apply a zero-tolerance policy for any lack of transparency, good practices, or publication ethics. A fault will result in the definitive withdrawal from the journal of any member of the Editorial Committee and the author, in addition to a 20-year veto on the publication of papers in Terra Latinoamericana.

Terra Latinoamericana takes issues related to publishing ethics very seriously. Generally speaking, authors are expected to adhere to ethical standards with respect to attribution of authorship, conflicts of interest, respect for ethical considerations in the use of human and experimental animal participants, disclosures of financial support, and participation in the peer review process. In addition, cases of invalid or fraudulent data, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, similarity, and dual submissions will constitute grounds for rejection. Of course, Terra Latinoamericana editors and reviewers are expected to comply with ethical standards regarding conflicts of interest, confidentiality of reviewed articles, objective evaluation of work and preservation of the anonymity of reviewers until acceptance, in addition to refraining from coercive dating. Editors have the authority and responsibility for the acceptance of articles. While Terra Latinoamericana strives for transparency regarding the identity of reviewers and editors, external publication of review reports or discussions of the review process is strictly prohibited. As contributions made to the interactive review process come from different parties, the decision to share these contributions is not the reservation of either party.

Corrections policies

The Editorial Team of Terra Latinoamericana have the responsibility to correct scientifically relevant errors in previously published articles. The corrections more common that we attend are related to a small section of an otherwise reliable publication proves to be misleading; or there is an error in a figure that does not alter the conclusions; or there is an error in statistical data not altering conclusions; or there are mislabeled figures; or if the authors/contributors list is incorrect when a deserving author has been omitted or somebody who does not meet authorship criteria has been included. To address any of these corrections or any other, an email must be sent to M.Sc. Rosa María López Atilano (formato.ed.terra@gmail.com), indicating the incorrect section, as well as the corresponding correction.

Erratum policies

The policies of erratum of Terra Latinoamericana refers to a correction of errors introduced to the article by the editor or editorial team. All changes introduced by the editor are highlighted to the author at the proof stage or galley and any errors should be identified by the author and should be corrected by the editor before final publication. The authors who notice an error should immediately contact by e-mail to M.Sc. Rosa María López Atilano (formato.ed.terra@gmail.com), indicating the error detected in the publication, adding all the identification data of the paper published.

Retractations policies

According to the Committee on Publication Ethics (https://publicationethics.org/), Terra Latinoamericana abides by their guidelines and recommendations in cases of potential retraction. Terra Latinoamericana also abides by two other key principles, as recommended by COPE: retractions are not about penalizing authors; retraction statements should be public and linked to the original, retracted article. All potential retractions will be judged on their own merits and will be the subject of an internal investigation or were satisfactory, the recommendations from the institutional investigation of the author(s). Terra Latinoamericana as other international journals, considers the following reasons as giving cause for concern and potential retraction: clear evidence that findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g. data fabrication) or honest error (e.g. miscalculation or experimental error); findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper attribution, permission or justification (i.e. cases of redundant publication); major plagiarism or auto plagiarism; the reporting of unethical research, the publication of an article that did not have the required ethics or bioethics committee approval; legal issues pertaining to the content of the article, e.g. libelous content; major authorship issues, i.e. proven or strongly suspected cases of ghostwriting or sold (‘gift’) authorship; politically motivated articles where objectivity is a serious concern; the singling out of individuals or organizations for attack; faith issues (e.g. intelligent design); papers that have made extraordinary claims without concomitant scientific or statistical evidence (e.g. pseudoscience). When any reader, author or member of the editorial committee detects articles published in Terra Latinoamericana that may require retraction, they should immediately contact the authors of the article and send an email to the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Terra Latinoamericana (editor@terralatinoamericana.org. mx), making sure to include copies of all correspondence with authors.

Conflict of interest

For the Terra Latinoamericana and according to other international journals, a conflict of interest can be anything potentially interfering with, or that could be perceived as interfering with, full and objective peer review, decision-making or publication of articles submitted to Terra Latinoamericana. The personal, financial, and professional affiliations or relationships can be perceived as conflicts of interest. All authors and members of Terra Latinoamericana Editorial Board are required to disclose any actual and potential conflicts of interest at submission or upon accepting an editorial or review assignment. Failure to declare competing interests can result in the rejection of a manuscript. If an undisclosed competing interest comes to light after publication, Terra Latinoamericana will act in accordance with internal policies and Committee on Publication Ethics guidelines. Anything that can be perceived as a potential conflict of interest should be disclosed within the statements section, during submission, which will be included in the file of the version of the final publication of the paper.

Guidelines for Publishing

Guidelines for publishing papers in TERRA LATINOAMERICANA

Download Instructions 2021

Plagiarism or self-plagiarism

The use of someone else’s ideas or words in their original, or slightly changed, form without proper citation is plagiarism and will not be tolerated in Terra Latinoamericana. Even when a citation is given, if quotation marks are not placed around words taken directly from another author’s work, the author is still guilty of plagiarism. In accordance with COPE guidelines, we expect that “original wording taken directly from publications by other researchers should appear in quotation marks with the appropriate citations.” This condition also applies to an author’s own work. All manuscripts received in the platform of Terra Latinoamericana are sent to iThenticate^®, a software or plagiarism control system, which compares the content of the manuscript and confirms the originality of the content presented. This software contrasts the manuscripts by comparing them with millions in the database of web pages and academic publications such as scientific papers and other notable sources. In this process, the iThenticate® software provides a report with a similarity index which specifies (1) a total similarity percentage of the sum of the percent similarity of individual articles, books, etc. published previously, and (2) the report also provides a PDF file with the phrases that were copied with its reference. Some of the criteria for reviewing the similarity index of Terra Latinoamericana are the following: a) References with an individual similarity index greater than 1% are the ideal case and are considered as having no overlap or plagiarism, even though the total similarity of all individuals summed up could possibly exceed 15%; b) The bibliography section is also checked and should not list verbatim all the references without a single new one from another article, this is not considered plagiarism per se, but it is considered that author has simply used the reference of another published article without doing any original research, the goal is to publish original research manuscripts with original research; c) In some cases, the same name is used for variables, varieties, among others, which are determined in computing the similarity index; however, these will not be considered plagiarism, nor to be self-plagiarized; d) As a general rule  the total similarity index without the bibliography and references, should be equal to or less than 15%; however, larger total numbers will be considered on a case by case basis. In the event that overlap or similarity is detected, the Editor-in-Chief of Terra Latinoamericana will notify the corresponding author as part of the review procedure of the manuscript. The corresponding author who agrees to continue with the review process will be obligated to modify the manuscript and reduce the similarity index. If the authors insist on not modifying their manuscript and send it to the platform of Terra Latinoamericana without making the changes, this document will be judged as plagiarized or self-plagiarized, supported by the iThenticate® and will not be considered for publication. The decision to reject because of plagiarism of a submitted manuscript depends on the Editor-in-Chief of Terra Latinoamericana, supported by the review of the Associate Editor or the rest of the members of the Editorial Committee of Terra Latinoamericana. When similarity is not detected, no action will be required by the corresponding author, that is, he or she will not receive any notification in this regard and the manuscript will be sent to the Associate Editors for their evaluation.

Statistics

Terra Latinoamericana has an editorial team (Statistical Editors) dedicated exclusively to review the sections of the experimental design and statistical analysis of the manuscripts that are received on the OJS platform. In that context, the journal requires that all statements about quantitative differences be based on quantitative data and statistical tests. Statistical analyzes are required to be applied for independent experiments. The number of independent samples and the deviation parameters (e.g., standard error of the mean, standard deviation, confidence intervals) should be clearly indicated in the methods or figure legends. In general, technical replications within a single experiment are not considered independent samples. Descriptions of statistical analyzes or procedures must include the software and analyzes used and must be detailed enough to be reproduced. Likewise, in the section corresponding to the experimental design used, the authors must specifically indicate the experimental design used, indicate the number of times that the experiment was carried out, the number of replications of the experimental units (in general, at least n = 3), as well as the specific statistical analysis that was carried out.

Equity and no discrimination