Post Publication Discussion

Post-Publication Discussion

Penamas welcomes scholarly discussion of its published articles. Constructive debate after publication helps readers, strengthens the scholarly record, and allows errors to be identified and corrected. This page explains how post-publication discussion is conducted and managed at Penamas, in line with COPE guidance on post-publication discussions and corrections.

1. Who may take part

Any reader, researcher, or institution may submit a comment on an article published in Penamas. Commenters must give their full name, affiliation, and a working email address. Anonymous comments are not accepted.

2. Types of post-publication input

Comment or Letter to the Editor: a scholarly response to an article that raises a substantive point about its data, methods, interpretation, or conclusions.
Report of an error: a notice of a factual, numerical, citation, or authorship error in a published article.
Report of a suspected integrity concern: an allegation of plagiarism, data fabrication or falsification, unethical research, duplicate publication, or unauthorized authorship. These reports are handled under the procedure on the Research Misconduct page rather than as comments.

3. How to submit

Send your comment by email to penamasjurnal@gmail.com with the subject line “Post-Publication Comment: [article title]”. Please include:

the full citation and DOI of the article;
your name, affiliation, and email address;
the comment itself (maximum 1,000 words), with references for any claim of fact;
a statement of any competing interests, or a statement that there are none.

Comments are not accepted through the OJS submission system or on social media; messages sent there will not be treated as formal comments.

4. How comments are handled

Acknowledgement. The editorial office acknowledges receipt within 7 days.
Screening. The Editor-in-Chief, or an editor with no connection to the article, checks that the comment is relevant, civil, evidence-based, and free of personal criticism, defamatory language, or unsupported accusations.
Response from the authors. The corresponding author is sent the comment and invited to respond within 30 days. The commenter’s identity is not withheld from the authors.
Review. Where the comment concerns data, methods, or conclusions, the editors may consult a reviewer who was not involved in the original review.
Decision. The journal decides within 60 days of receiving the comment whether to publish it, publish it together with the authors’ response, handle it as a correction or retraction matter, or decline it with reasons. The commenter is informed of the outcome.

Commenters, authors, and editors involved in a discussion must treat unpublished correspondence as confidential until a decision is made.

5. Publication of accepted comments

Accepted comments, together with any author response, are published openly on the journal website as a Letter to the Editor, linked to the original article, and carry their own citation details. Published discussion does not remove or replace the original article.

6. Outcomes that affect the article

If the discussion shows that the article contains an error or a serious problem, the journal acts under its Correction and Retraction policy:

a correction (erratum or corrigendum) when the error does not undermine the main findings or conclusions;
a retraction when academic integrity has been violated or a serious error makes the data, findings, or conclusions unreliable.

Notices of correction or retraction are public, state the article, the type of action, the reason, and who decided, and are linked to the article and updated in the DOI and metadata. Retracted articles remain available online and are clearly marked as retracted.

7. Editorial independence

Decisions on post-publication comments are made by the editors on scholarly grounds. They are not influenced by the commenter’s or the authors’ institution, nationality, seniority, or relationship with the journal, nor by any commercial consideration. An editor with a conflict of interest regarding the article or the commenter does not take part in the decision.

8. Time limit and records

Comments on an article should normally be submitted within 24 months of its publication. Later comments may be considered when they report a serious error or integrity concern. The editorial office keeps a record of every comment received, the decision, and the reasons.