PONE-D-21-05216

Vegetables contamination by heavy metals and associated health risk to the population in Koka area of central Ethiopia

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Bayissa 

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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ACADEMIC EDITOR: 1- Please write complete information when first time use its abbreviated form.

2- Please add some reference or any information in tableted form which explained WHO criteria for critical limits for the heavy metals in vegetables.

3- What were heavy metals concentration in your studied site and its adjacent areas.

4- Please follow the journal format for text headings and reference style.

5- Please improve your article in scientific manner like sentence structure and English mistakes.

6- Reviewer 3 has attached document which must be addressed by the authors.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Saqib Bashir

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments:

1- Please write complete information when first time use its abbreviated form.

2- Please add some reference or any information in tableted form which explained WHO criteria for critical limits for the heavy metals in vegetables.

3- What were heavy metals concentration in your studied site and its adjacent areas.

4- Please follow the journal format for text headings and reference style.

5- Please improve your article in scientific manner like sentence structure and English mistakes.

^- Reviewer 3 has attached document which must be addressed by the authors.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The article titled “Vegetables contamination by heavy metals and associated health risk to the

population in Koka area of central Ethiopia.” Is worth accepting, as this study is well designed and is comprehensive, covering all the related elements. But there are few things which I suggest are as follows:

Few suggestions should be incorporated as under:

i) Clearly defined the abbreviations used in the manuscript

ii) Line no. 8 correct the word “glob”

iii) Line no. 373 “Figure 1 here”. It will be replaced with the Figure 3 given below on line no. 375.

Over all I have seen some grammatical mistakes and few typing mistakes in the manuscript. As they are treated as accepted.

Reviewer #2: 1)time field studies have very limited validity, was the experiment replicated on other site or many years? I recommend to do experiment for the one more years to publish your results and use two years data to write your manuscript

2) The abstract is too vague and actual data is required

3) There are some major issues that need to be addressed. In brief, the weakest points of the manuscript are language and structure, and significant efforts should be made to improve both of these issues. At many points results and discussion are difficult to understand due to the poor English level. In its current form is it really difficult to follow the manuscript in places.

4) Use international units system

5) Introduction section must be rewrite with more emphasize on objectives and novelty. The research question is not clear throughout the introduction, which also lacks a clear hypothesis.

6) Avoid the use of acronyms and abbreviations in the conclusions section. Remember that this section must be self-explanatory. Please, in this section you must emphasize the novelty and implication of your study and not just repeat results. Conclusions are not a summary.

7)Methods are not clear, how experiments were conducted, what and how were the application modes etc.?

8)What is the main hypothesis of this study?

9)Introduction". The Authors should clearly state the novelty of the research paper. How is the study improving the state of art? What is the novation/impact of the presented technique?

10)Highlights should be shorter, and provide key points.

11)Abstract: more content should be added to abstract, especially on the general conclusion obtained from this study.The abstract should be more concise.

Reviewer #3: The manuscript PONE-D-21-05216 was reviewed properly. Objective of the manuscript were tried to accomplished through material and methides. Data was analyzed properly and interpreted properly. There are some ambiguity which were asked to the authors in the reviewer's uploaded sheet. Conclusions are reflecting the actual figure of the research work.

1. In Abstract, TCR write completely when write first time and can be abbreviated next time writing.
2. WHO criteria for critical limits (maximum, minimum and threshold) for the heavy metals in cabbage and tomato were not considered. Why?
3. What are the concentrations of the heavy metals in the lake KOKA water due to industries existing near the KOKA lake? Heavy metals concentrations in the KOKA Lake water were not included in the Manuscript. Why?
4. In methodology, total of 2 cabbage and two tomato samples from both field areas were collected. Were these samples enough for manuscript data?
5. In methodology; Page No.4 and Line number 80; convert “steeliness” into “stainless”.
6. Total 4 soil samples from the study site were taken. Only 4 samples are enough for the manuscript data?
7. In “Result and Discussion” Table No. 1. No need to write word “Beneath”. It is better to write “area under tomato cultivation”. Rest of the correction should be incorporated.
8. Page No. 9. Line No. 186; values 2.06 to 2.30 for %MC are not according to the Table No. 1. The values for %MC are 24.53 and 19.65. Formerly mentioned values (2.06 & 2.30) are for %OM according to Table No. 1. Similarly, in the Line No. 186 and 187; values 1.09 and 1.41 are for %OC, not for %OM, so, correct them according to the Table No. 1.
9. In the line No. 190; value for %OC 44.9% seems to be doubted. So, author should check it.
10. Mention effects of heavy metals under discussion on human body like causing different diseases and disorders in the human beings.    
11. Page No. 13, Line No. 281; value 16.96 is not according to its concerned Table No.3.
12. Line No. 282; value for Ni is 09, which is not according to the Table No. 3.
13. English language for the manuscript should be improved.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Dr. Muhammad Adnan Bukhari

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: reviewer comments PONE-D-21-05216.docx

Attachment

Submitted filename: Reviewers comments.docx

Vegetables contamination by heavy metals and associated health risk to the population in Koka area of central Ethiopia

PONE-D-21-05216R1

Dear Dr. Bayissa,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Saqib Bashir

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #3: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #3: Author incorporated all the amendments instructed by my side. He improved the manuscript. Still language can be improved. Language should be legible to the readers. Technical work should be written in a simple way so that the reader can read it with keen interest.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #3: No