Section Policies

Plant Science Horizons (PSH) organizes manuscripts by scholarly article type so that each submission receives appropriate editorial handling, peer review, presentation standards, and publication treatment. All sections remain subject to the same requirements for scientific integrity, transparent reporting, ethical compliance, conflicts of interest, authorship, data integrity, and editorial independence.

Why PSH uses article-type sections

Section assignment helps authors understand the expected scholarly purpose of a manuscript and helps editors apply an appropriate review route. Sections are based primarily on article type, not on scientific discipline. A manuscript on genomics, physiology, plant pathology, breeding, ecology, or any other topic within scope may therefore be submitted as an Original Research Article, Review Article, Perspective, Commentary, or another appropriate format.

Section classification does not lower or raise the journal's core standards for integrity, evidence, ethical compliance, and transparent reporting.

Author selection and editorial reassignment

Authors should select the article type that best reflects the manuscript's scientific purpose at submission. The editorial team may reassign a manuscript when another section is more appropriate for its content, length, structure, or review needs.

Reclassification does not imply acceptance and may occur before peer review, during editorial assessment, or after consultation with the authors.

Full reports of original research

Original Research Articles report a substantial body of new experimental, observational, field, computational, genomic, methodological, or integrative research that provides a clear advance in plant science.

• Review route: external double-blind peer review, normally by at least two independent reviewers.
• Expected structure: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion where appropriate, declarations, references, tables/figures and supplementary material.
• Highlights: required.
• Data Availability: required.
• Priority: mechanistically informative, conceptually significant, technically robust, or broadly relevant findings.

Critical synthesis of an important field

Review Articles should do more than summarize published literature. They should organize evidence critically, identify major conceptual or methodological advances, explain unresolved disagreements, reveal knowledge gaps, and define important future directions.

• Review route: external scholarly peer review.
• Highlights: required.
• Future / Outstanding Questions: encouraged.
• Graphical abstract: encouraged where it adds conceptual value.
• Broad Review proposals may be discussed with the editorial office before full manuscript preparation.

Focused synthesis of a rapidly developing topic

Mini Reviews provide a concise, critical assessment of a clearly defined topic rather than an exhaustive survey of a large field.

Review route: external scholarly peer review.

Concise reports of complete and timely findings

Short Communications are intended for scientifically complete findings that can be communicated concisely. They are not a route for incomplete, weakly replicated, or purely preliminary observations.

Review route: external double-blind peer review.

Methods, tools and technical resources with broad utility

This section covers validated experimental protocols, analytical methods, computational pipelines, software, phenotyping approaches, molecular tools, transformation systems, imaging methods, or other technical advances that provide clear advantages over existing practice.

• Review route: external double-blind peer review.
• The method must be adequately validated, benchmarked, and reproducible.
• A routine adaptation with only minor technical change is unlikely to be sufficient.

Evidence-based arguments and forward-looking concepts

Perspectives and Opinions present a reasoned scholarly position, emerging conceptual framework, hypothesis, unresolved debate, strategic research direction, or interpretation of an important development in plant science.

Review route: normally external scholarly review; editorial review may be used for invited non-data-driven pieces where appropriate.

Focused discussion of a timely scientific issue

Commentaries provide concise scholarly analysis of an important paper, research development, policy issue, methodological debate, emerging concept, or topic of immediate relevance to plant-science readers.

Review route: editorial review and, when needed, external expert review.

Expert interpretation of a notable recent advance

Spotlights are concise articles that explain the importance of a recently published discovery, connect it to the broader field, and identify conceptual, mechanistic, evolutionary, or applied implications for plant science.

• Review route: editorial review; external expert review may be used when appropriate.
• Spotlights should interpret rather than merely summarize the highlighted paper.
• Original experimental datasets should not normally be introduced in this format.

Concise scholarly correspondence

Letters may address a recently published PSH article, clarify a scientific point, raise a well-supported methodological concern, or discuss a matter of direct relevance to the journal's readership.

Review route: editorial review; external review may be used when scientific claims require independent assessment.

Journal perspectives and editorial statements

Editorials communicate journal priorities, introduce an issue or collection, discuss developments of broad relevance, address publication or scientific matters, or present invited editorial perspectives.

• Review route: independent editorial assessment rather than routine external peer review.
• An editor who authors an Editorial should not be the sole person responsible for approving it for publication.
• Editorials that contain substantial original research data or contested scientific claims may be subjected to external review.
• Editorials must comply with conflict-of-interest, citation, copyright, and integrity policies.

A collection framework, not a separate article type

Special Issues and Thematic Collections group articles around a defined scientific theme. Authors submit one of the journal's normal article types (for example Original Research, Review, Perspective, or Commentary) within the collection.

Collection manuscripts follow the same scientific thresholds, conflict-of-interest requirements, reviewer-independence standards, double-blind review procedures where applicable, and editorial policies as regular submissions.

Independent handling within collections

• Guest Editors must disclose relevant conflicts of interest.
• They should not handle their own manuscripts or submissions from relationships that materially compromise independence.
• Reviewer selection must prioritize expertise, identity verification and independence.
• Scientific thresholds must not be reduced to increase the number of accepted papers in a collection.
• The Editors-in-Chief retain journal-level oversight and may reassign manuscripts when necessary.

How review differs by article type

The presence or absence of routine external peer review depends on the nature of the article, but all published content undergoes editorial assessment.

No article type is exempt from conflict management

When an editor, Editorial Board member, Guest Editor, or other journal-affiliated person is an author, they must not participate in the handling or decision of their own submission.

An independent editor should manage the manuscript according to the normal standards for that article type.

Invitation does not guarantee publication

Invited Reviews, Perspectives, Commentaries, Spotlights, Editorials, or collection contributions remain subject to editorial quality checks, integrity requirements, revision when needed, and the appropriate review route for the section. An invitation is not a guarantee of acceptance.

Optional proposals for review-type content

Authors considering a broad Review, Mini Review, or Perspective may contact the editorial office before preparing the full manuscript. A proposal may include a provisional title, brief rationale, proposed outline, key recent literature, and a summary of the authors' expertise.

Editorial interest in a proposal does not constitute acceptance of the final manuscript.

Originality applies across all sections

Originality is interpreted according to article purpose. Research Articles must provide original research findings; Reviews must provide original synthesis and interpretation; Perspectives must offer a distinctive scholarly argument; Commentaries and Spotlights must contribute expert interpretation rather than merely reproduce the content of the work discussed.

Common ethical standards across sections

Requirements depend on the claims being made

Research and Methods articles should provide sufficient underlying evidence to support their conclusions and follow the journal's Data Availability policy. Review, Perspective, Commentary, Spotlight, Letter, and Editorial formats normally do not require new datasets unless they introduce new analyses or evidence.

Supplementary material should support the article rather than contain essential information that should appear in the main manuscript.

Graphical abstracts and conceptual figures

Graphical abstracts are encouraged for Original Research, Review, Mini Review, Perspective, and Methods articles where a visual summary improves communication. Reviews and Perspectives are encouraged to include original conceptual figures that synthesize mechanisms, models, frameworks, or future directions.

All graphical content must follow the journal's image-integrity and copyright policies.

Limits are editorial guides, not substitutes for concise writing

Word, reference, and display-item limits are intended to keep article types distinct and readable. Editors may permit reasonable exceptions when scientific complexity requires additional material.

Authors should not treat maximum limits as targets; manuscripts should be as concise as the scientific argument permits.

A manuscript may change section when scientifically appropriate

If peer review or editorial assessment shows that a manuscript is better suited to another format—for example, a full Research Article that should be shortened to a Short Communication, or a Commentary that would be more appropriate as a Perspective—the editor may recommend reclassification and corresponding revision.

Review route does not transfer final editorial responsibility

Whether a manuscript receives external review, editorial review, or both, final publication responsibility remains with the journal's editorial leadership. Reviewer recommendations are advisory and are considered alongside manuscript quality, ethical compliance, author responses, and journal policy.

Article type should remain visible in the published record

The final published article should identify its article type consistently in article metadata, PDF/HTML presentation, citation information where appropriate, and indexing metadata so that readers and discovery services can distinguish research papers from reviews, commentaries, spotlights, editorials, and other scholarly formats.

Section structure for a journal launched in 2026

PSH is currently developing its publication record and article portfolio. The section framework is therefore designed to be broad enough to support future growth while remaining consistent with the content types currently represented and with the journal's Author Guidelines.

New article types should be introduced only when the journal has a clear editorial purpose, defined review route, author instructions, publication labeling, and capacity to manage the format consistently.

Before selecting an article type, ask

Different formats, one scientific standard

Plant Science Horizons uses distinct article sections to support different forms of scholarly communication, but all published content is expected to be accurate, original, ethically prepared, transparently presented, and appropriate for the journal's plant-science readership. Section-specific review routes never replace the journal's overarching responsibility for scientific quality and editorial integrity.