Guest Editor Guide

Landscape Architecture Frontiers welcomes guest editors!
Guest editors, as scholars or professionals at the forefront of certain fields, are expected to help advance the state of knowledge with a special collection of articles, with the assistance of the editorial team. 
Mainly, the job of a guest editor includes:

1. Preparing a Proposal
You need to submit a proposal of special issue to the editorial office. The proposal should cover 1) the topic of the issue; 2) interpretation of the topic; 3) the important areas on which the special issue will focus; 4) anticipated contributors; 5) anticipated timeframe; 6) a short biography of all anticipated contributors and the guest editor.
Please note that the proposal might be improved through several times of revisions before its submission to the editorial broad for the agreement and opinion collection.

2. Inviting Authors
After the formal agreement on the special issue through the wide discussion among the editorial broad members, the guest editor is expected to invite authors for this issue. A special issue normally contains between five and 10 full-length articles, in addition to an editorial written by the guest editor(s). Diversity and internationality of the authors’ affiliations should be considered. Considering that all submissions for potential inclusion in a special issue will successfully pass the peer reviews is highly unlikely, it is wise to consider more articles than you anticipate. If fewer than three articles are accepted for publication, the articles will be published as stand-alone articles in other issues.

3. Preliminary Review and Peer Review 
The guest editor is responsible for the preliminary review of all the submissions for this issue. The process should be conducted in an appropriate manner and in line with normal review practices for the journal. 
This preliminary review should be based on the scientific quality of the content and the topic should clearly fall within the scope of the special issue and the journal hosting it. The guest editor needs to independently make the preliminary decision on all manuscripts for being rejected or sent to peer review. If the guest editor evaluates a submission fine enough for a peer review, he/she is expected to select possible peer reviewers 
who have suitable expertise in the field. The journal adopts a double-blind peer review process, and the guest editor must review all disclosures of potential conflicts of interest made by the reviewers in order to determine whether there is any potential for bias.

4. Publication Process
After the submission passes the peer review, the guest editor is expected to work with the editorial team in the publication process, including the promoting and spreading of the articles.

5. Ethical Responsibilities
Please note that the special issues are subject to the same strict and rigorous ethical principles as regular journal issues. If unethical practices are detected, a special issue will be cancelled at any stage at any time.

For more details, please feel free to contact with the editorial team via lafrontiers@pku.edu.cn.

Thank you!