Journal Policies

About the Journal

Journal of Economic Entomology is published bimonthly in February, April, June, August, October, and December. The journal publishes articles on the economic significance of insects and other arthropods and is divided into the following sections: apiculture and social insects; arthropods in relation to plant disease; forum; insecticide resistance and resistance management; ecotoxicology; biological and microbial control; ecology and behavior; sampling and biostatistics; household and structural insects; medical entomology; molecular entomology; veterinary entomology; forest entomology; horticultural entomology; field and forage crops, and small grains; stored product; commodity treatment and quarantine entomology; plant resistance; and climate change. In addition to research papers, Journal of Economic Entomology publishes Reviews, interpretive articles in a Forum section, Short Communications, and Letters to the Editor.

Journal Submissions

The journals published by ESA primarily contain research articles, all of which are peer reviewed before being accepted for publication. In addition to scientific research articles, the journals publish letters to the editor, interpretive or evaluative articles that appear in a Forum section, and book reviews (all book reviews appear in American Entomologist). Manuscripts that describe entomological techniques and computer software programs generally are not considered for publication in the journals, with the exception of Journal of Insect Science’s protocols papers.

Forum Submissions

Papers that are published in the Forum section are authored by acknowledged leaders in the field. Forum articles are reviews of a research area that include a stimulating, thought-provoking discussion and that focus on important, and sometimes controversial, issues. They should provide an innovative approach to current thought and speculate about future research directions. Forum articles may also be written by invitation of the journal editor-in-chief.

Short Communications

Short communications should be similar to articles with Materials and Methods and Discussion briefer. Total length should be 2,000 words or less.

Letter to the Editor Submissions and Policy

Each journal will entertain submissions in the form of a Letter to the Editor in which the author or authors express their viewpoint on scientific issues. Appropriate content can include comments or criticisms in reference to a published paper, whether or not in an ESA journal, or comments and opinions unrelated to a specific published paper. A Letter will be limited to 2,000 words, 10 references, and one table or figure. The Editor-in-Chief (EIC) will judge whether a submitted Letter merits consideration for potential publication based on relevance, inherent interest, and coherence of the submission, but with a view to allowing a range of opinions to be expressed. If the EIC considers the submission to be suitable in principle, he/she will send it to at least one anonymous reviewer for comments, and will edit it for style and appropriate language before returning it to the corresponding author for revisions.

In the case of a Letter which criticizes a published paper, the latter can be from an ESA journal or any peer-reviewed journal, including papers published in final form online before appearing in the hardcopy issue. The paper being addressed in the Letter must be cited in full, including complete volume and page information, or DOI information if in electronic form. The EIC will require resubmission of a Letter to the Editor that is dated or received before the official publication date of the paper in question. A submitted Letter criticizing an unpublished paper can be considered only if written permission has been received from the corresponding author of that paper, regardless of how the authors of the Letter came into possession of the unpublished material. The EIC will arrange with at least one anonymous reviewer to return comments within one week. The Letter writer(s) shall have at least one week to make revisions and resubmit.

After revisions by the authors, if necessary, and acceptance by the EIC, the corresponding author of the paper being criticized will be contacted by the EIC, provided with the Letter which has been accepted (and which is therefore no longer eligible for author-initiated changes beyond minor typographical errors in proof stage), and given at least two weeks to submit a Response. The same format and word limitations apply to the Response as described above for the Letter to the Editor. The EIC will arrange for at least one anonymous peer review of the Response within one week, and edit the Response for style and appropriate language. The authors will be given at least one week to make revisions and to resubmit. If the authors of the Response meet these timelines, they will be guaranteed to have their Response published in tandem with the original Letter to the Editor in the earliest possible issue as dictated by the journal production schedule. If the authors of the Response fail to meet these timelines, they may still submit a Response, but forfeit the right to have it published in the same issue as the Letter to the Editor. The authors of the Letter to the Editor will not be allowed to see the Response before publication, unless the authors of the Response request in writing to the EIC that it be shared. For both the Letter to the Editor and the Response, the EIC will edit the submissions to remove discourteous language or personal attacks of any kind. Ad hominem arguments are not allowed in either the Letter or the Response, and are grounds for rejection. Page charges shall be waived for Letters to the Editor and Response letters.

Corresponding author

ESA journals allow for multiple people to be designated as a corresponding author on a published article. Authors should mark the co-corresponding authors in the main document. Note that only one person can be selected as the corresponding author in the submission system; that person will be responsible for communications during the review and production process. Authors are encouraged to include a statement of author contribution and are required to use the CRediT taxonomy of roles, which will be published on accepted manuscripts.

Ethics

Authors should observe high standards with respect to publication ethics as set out by ESA and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Any cases of ethical misconduct are treated very seriously and will be dealt with in accordance with ESA's author misconduct policy and the COPE guidelines. Further information about OUP's ethical policies is available on our ethics page.

Please note this journal has enabled the Authorship Change Detection Tool, provided by ScholarOne. This functionality will alert the Editorial Office of any changes made to the authorship list during revisions, resubmissions or transfers. If detected, all Co-Authors will be asked either to accept or reject the change.

Manuscript Review

Peer Review Policy

This journal operates single-anonymised peer review, meaning that the Author's identity is known to the Editor and to the Reviewers, but that the Reviewers’ identities are known only to the Editor and are hidden from the Authors. For full details about the peer review process, see Fair editing and peer review.

OUP author FAQs.

Review Process

Before any manuscript is accepted for publication, it is evaluated by reviewers qualified to assess the significance and quality of the research. Reviewers comment on the content of the manuscript, the methodology of the experiment, and the results. Reviewers recommend revisions to the manuscript and suggest whether a manuscript should be accepted or rejected for publication. Reviewers are selected by the editors. The editor may seek additional reviews of a manuscript or have a resubmitted one reviewed again. However, the decision to accept or reject a manuscript for publication is the responsibility of the editor, not the reviewer.

In addition, the editor may withdraw or recommend transfer of a manuscript to another ESA publication. A manuscript is withdrawn by the editor when the data are sound, but there is a major flaw(s) in the manuscript that can be fixed. If a manuscript has been withdrawn rather than rejected, it can be resubmitted at a later date, but the author must take into account the comments of the editor and reviewers before doing so. When it is resubmitted, it will be treated as a new submission and need additional peer review. In the cover letter, authors must that a previous version of the paper was withdrawn and note the previous manuscript number. A withdrawal cannot be appealed by the authors.

A manuscript is rejected by the subject editor when there is a fundamental flaw in the data that cannot be fixed, or for other reasons. A manuscript describing that data set cannot be submitted again to an ESA journal. A rejection can be appealed to the Publications Council.

The review process also is handled online using the ScholarOne system.

Appeal of a Rejection

An author can appeal an editor's decision to reject a manuscript for publication through the ESA Publications Council. To appeal a rejection, the author must send the following items to the ESA Director of Publications:

• A letter that explains why the author has chosen to appeal the rejection. The letter should address specific reasons provided by the editor for the rejection.
• The editor’s letter of rejection.
• The reviewers’ comments.
• The rejected version of the manuscript.
• Any additional correspondence.

These items may be sent as e-mail attachments to [email protected]. 

The Director of Publications forwards these materials to the Publications Council’s appeals subcommittee for review. The appeals subcommittee reviews and discusses the materials provided. In writing, the subcommittee then informs the author, editor, and the Director of Publications of their decision. The decision of the Publications Council is final. The appeals process takes approximately 1 month from when the Publications Council receives the appeal materials.

Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest

Potential conflicts of interest include any relationships of a financial or personal nature between an author or coauthor and individuals or organizations within three years of submission which, in theory, could affect or bias an author’s scientific judgment, or limit an author’s freedom to publish, analyze, discuss, or interpret relevant data. Sources of financial support originating outside the coauthors’ home institution(s) for any aspect of a study must be indicated in the Acknowledgments section of the paper. Financial support includes not only funding, but gratis provision of materials, services, or equipment. Any additional potential conflicts of interest, not covered in the acknowledgments of financial support, must be revealed to the editor at submission, and disclosed in a statement immediately following the Acknowledgments. If an author or coauthor has entered into an agreement with any entity outside that authors’ home institution, including the home institution of another coauthor, giving that entity veto power over publication of the study or over presentation, analysis, discussion, or interpretation of any results of the study, whether or not such veto power was exercised, this information must be disclosed in a statement immediately following the Acknowledgments. As a suggestion, such a statement could take the following form: “This manuscript is published with the concurrence of [Institution / Company / Individual / etc. X].“ If no potential conflicts of interest exist, this must be stated in the cover letter to the editor at submission.

Third-Party Content In Open Access Papers

If you will be publishing your paper under an Open Access licence but it contains material for which you do not have Open Access re-use permissions, please state this clearly by supplying the following credit line alongside the material:

Title of content

Author, Original publication, year of original publication, by permission of [rights holder]

This image/content is not covered by the terms of the Creative Commons licence of this publication. For permission to reuse, please contact the rights holder.

Data Archiving

ESA journals encourage authors to deposit data supporting the results in the paper in an appropriate public archive. Data are important products of the scientific enterprise and they should be preserved and usable for decades in the future. Authors may elect to have the data publicly available at time of publication, or, if the technology of the archive allows, may opt to embargo access to the data. ESA journals will provide support to link the paper and data. Any costs associated with archiving the data are the responsibility of the author.