Withdrawal Policy

Skip to content

The Archives of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (APPS) has a clearly defined Withdrawal Policy to protect the integrity of the scholarly record. As described on our Withdrawal Policy page, articles may be withdrawn, corrected, replaced, or retracted under specific circumstances.

Source: APPS — Withdrawal Policy.

1) Withdrawal Before Acceptance

Authors may request withdrawal of a submitted manuscript prior to editorial acceptance. Such requests must be made in writing, citing valid reasons (e.g., duplicate submission, major errors in data). The editorial office reserves the right to approve or deny requests to avoid unethical practices.

2) Withdrawal After Acceptance but Before Publication

Withdrawal requests at this stage are considered serious. Authors must provide a signed statement explaining their reasons. Because significant resources have already been invested in processing, an Article Withdrawal Fee of USD 200 may be charged to cover editorial and administrative costs.

3) Withdrawal After Online Publication

Articles that have been published online cannot be removed from the scholarly record except under exceptional circumstances. Instead, they may be corrected, replaced, or retracted:

  • Corrections: Issued for minor errors that do not alter findings.
  • Retractions: Issued for major ethical breaches or scientific inaccuracies.
  • Replacements: Issued when corrected articles replace earlier flawed versions.

4) Retraction Process

Retractions are carried out following COPE guidelines. A retraction notice will be published, stating the reasons, and linked to the original article. The original article PDF will be watermarked as "Retracted" but remain accessible for transparency.

5) Legal and Ethical Grounds for Removal

Articles may be removed for legal reasons such as defamation, privacy violations, or court orders. In such cases, the metadata (title, authors, abstract) will be retained, with a note indicating removal for legal reasons.

6) Withdrawal Charges

To discourage unethical withdrawal after the review or acceptance stage, APPS applies charges:

Stage Charges (USD)
Before peer review No charge
After peer review but before acceptance 349
After acceptance but before publication 549

7) Author Responsibilities

  • Submit manuscripts only when confident in the work’s integrity.
  • Avoid duplicate submissions to multiple journals.
  • Communicate promptly with the editorial office regarding withdrawal requests.
 

8) Contact Information

For withdrawal requests, authors should contact: