Authors are not permitted to withdraw a submitted or published manuscript without compelling and legitimate reasons. Unjustified withdrawal is considered unethical and wasteful, as it disregards the substantial time and resources invested by editors, reviewers, and the publisher throughout the editorial and production process. Withdrawal requests made for the sole reason that the manuscript has been accepted by another journal are deemed unethical and violate the principles of responsible scholarly publishing, as outlined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Should an author still wish to request the withdrawal of a manuscript, a formal written request must be submitted by the corresponding author. This request must include a clear and valid reason for the withdrawal and must be accompanied by a signed “Article Withdrawal Form” approved by all co-authors (or the corresponding author on behalf of all authors). Authors must not consider the manuscript withdrawn until they have received an official written confirmation from the editorial office. All withdrawal-related inquiries should be directed to [email protected].

If a manuscript is under peer review or in production (e.g., copyediting, layout, or proofreading), authors must provide sufficient justification for the withdrawal and may be subject to administrative or editorial processing fees to offset operational costs already incurred by the journal.

The final decision regarding a withdrawal request rests solely with the Editor-in-Chief or managing editor, and such decisions are non-negotiable. Furthermore, the editorial board reserves the right to unilaterally withdraw a manuscript if it is found to involve ethical misconduct, such as plagiarism, data fabrication, duplicate submission, or any other form of research fraud. For information regarding the journal’s policy on Corrections and Retractions, authors are encouraged to consult the following link: https://ukinstitute.org/journals/4/njbss/PublicationEthics#corrections .