Publishing Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement
The Science Journal of Volgograd State University. Linguistics is committed to upholding international standards of publication ethics that are presented, in particular in recommended guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (http://publicationethics.org/). The Editorial Board of the Journal adheres to principles of publishing ethics accepted by the Association of Science Editors and Publishers (Russia) (Declaration of the Association of Science Editors and Publishers).
The prevention of unethical publication practices (malpractice, stating unreliable information and other forms of research misconduct), the ensuring the high quality of academic publications, public acceptance of an author’s research results are the responsibilities of the editor or any Editorial Board, the author, a reviewer, publishers, as well as institutions involved in the publication operation. All the aforementioned ones are required to follow ethical standards, norms and regulations and to take all rational measures to prevent their violation.
PUBLICATION DECISIONS
The editor is responsible for
- further development of the journal;
- abidance by the principle on freedom of expression;
- striving for meeting requirements of readership and authors
- elimination of business and political influence on decision making about publications;
- making decisions based on the principle of justice and fairness, ensuring transparency at all stages of editor’s activities;
- withholding the information about submitted manuscripts to anyone other than corresponding authors, reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate;
- evaluating manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship or political philosophy of authors;
- making decision about publication materials following the spectrum of criteria such as relevance to the journal’s scope and content, topicality, novelty and scientific significance of a submitted manuscript; language clarity; scientific certainty of research results and completeness of conclusions;
- accepting all rational measures for ensuring the high quality of publication materials and data privacy protection. If a published paper is subsequently found to have errors (contextual, grammatical, stylistic or any other ones) or major flaws, the editor should take responsibility for promptly correcting the written record in the journal. The editor assures that all measures will be taken to eliminate errors.
- taking into consideration reviewers’ recommendations for acceptance or rejection for all manuscripts they receive. The editor is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published;
- justification of a final decision on acceptance or rejection;
- providing the author of the peer-reviewed article with the opportunity to explicit an authorial research standpoint;
- preserving the decision on acceptance in case of rotations in the Editorial Board;
- supporting discussions and giving the opportunity for expressing opposing opinions;
- not using information contained in unpublished articles for editor’s research purposes.
Author responsibilities
Authors acknowledge to having submitted to The SScience Journal of Volgograd State University. Linguistics:
- to submit only original articles;
- to guarantee that textual or graphic information publications/submissions having been published by the author prior or by other authors is cited ethically and to present the justification of inclusion of the aforementioned material through a written permission in the usage. There must be full and prominent disclosure of the original source; otherwise it is regarded as plagiarism;
- to present an accurate account of the work performed and original data obtained. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper avoiding private sources, without written permission. The authors should not give false information or fabrication results;
- to guarantee that duplicate or redundant publications/submissions have not occurred (the application letter should contain the information that the article is to be published). If the submitted manuscript builds on previously published articles, authors are encouraged to enclose citations and show the difference between the new submission and the prior printed articles and indicate the contribution to the paper. Submission to more than one journal is considered unethical.
- to follow the ethical standards whilst criticizing and commenting in regard to other authors’ research work;
- to inform immediately the editorial board or the publisher about the glaring error in the published paper;
- to ensure the evidence of the correctness of the submitted article to the editorial board or the publisher and to correct errors if third parties inform the publisher;
- to enlist all co-authors of the article. Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. If there are some other persons who provided a useful guide to preparing the article, they should be mentioned in notes or in the section Acknowledgments.
The author has the right to appeal against the editorial board’s decision in line with the established procedures (indicated in the appendix to the part “Peer Review”)
Reviewer responsibilities
The reviewer giving opinion on the scientific merit of the paper submitted to The Science Journal of Volgograd State University. Linguistics is invited to provide the following:
- to give objective and impassionate decisions;
- to ensure confidentiality policies, i.e. manuscripts must not be shown or discussed with others, except as authorized by the editor;
- not to use the information obtained in the course of expertize for self-profit;
- to notify the Editor-in-Chief and to excuse himself from the review process if any expert feels unqualified to review the research reported in the manuscript and knows that he cannot meet the deadline;
- to express opinions based on factual information and prove decisions adopted;
- to attract the Editor-in-Chief’s attention to significant or fractional similarity of the manuscript with any other paper, as well as the absence of references to ideas, conclusions and arguments in the papers published by the author seeking submission or other authors;
- to include specific opinions on the paper suggestions for its improvement;
- not to use the unpublished manuscript for private research gain.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The potential conflict of interest ought to be avoided in the process of reviewing and publishing the submitted manuscript. Conflict of interest exists when an author (or the author’s institution), reviewer, or editor has financial, scientific or personal relationships that inappropriately influence (bias) or might appear to influence, his or her actions (such relationships are also known as dual commitments, competing interests, or competing loyalties).
To prevent the conflict of interest and according to the ethical rules of the journal each party involved in the publishing process is required to comply with the following guidance.
The editor should:
- appoint another expert referee in case if there is a conflict of interest between the initially appointed reviewer and the manuscript author;
- ask all the parties for information about the potential competing interest that may arise in the publishing process;
- make a decision on publishing the information from the author’s letter concerning the conflict of scientific or/and financial interest in case the information is not confidential and can influence the estimation of the published paper by the reader’s or scientific community;
- ensure the publication of a correction if the relevant information about the conflict of interest arises after the publication of the article.
The author should:
- mention all known and potential sources of the conflict of interest in his/her covering letter;
- disclose the employment, institutional affiliations and the source of research funding;
- confirm the absence of the conflict of interest in the cover letter.
The reviewer should:
- inform the editor-in-chief about the presence of the conflict of interest (double bindings, competing interests) and recuse himself / herself from reviewing the manuscript.
VIOLATIONS
Situations related to violation of the publishing ethics by author or reviewer, require compulsory investigation. This applies to both published and unpublished materials.
Complaints on publishing ethics violation may be connected with incorrect citing of information and plagiarism (using other authors’ content and conclusions without references to their papers), duplication of one’s own publications, inclusion of unreliable and/or false data in publications, incorrect indication of authors’ contribution into conducted research and some other violations.
To report a violation
In case a violation is revealed, the complaint is submitted in written form via e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. of Editorial Board or sent to postal address – Prosp. Universitetsky, 100, 400062 Volgograd, Russian Federation, to the chief editor of Science Journal of Volgograd State University. Linguistics.
The complaint should include the detailed description of suggested violation and the information proving this fact.
The editor is obliged to record and document the complaint. After close consideration he should prepare 'incident report' with all factual questions on the matter.
For the examination of the article and related materials the chief editor forms an expert Commission consisting of a Chairman (the chief editor or Deputy chief editor of the journal) and members of the Commission (not less than 2 members of the Editorial Board of the journal).
Strict standards of confidentiality, fairness, and impartiality will be maintained throughout the processes of investigation and resolution. All aspects of investigation must be treated confidentially.
Claims to author (incorrect citing and plagiarism, inclusion of unreliable or false data, incorrect indication of authors’ contribution into conducted research)
The editor must ensure comprehensive investigation when incorrect citing or plagiarism is suspected. It is possible that an author could unintentionally quote or copy parts of another article without giving references. It mostly concerns short extracts. However, this should not occur with whole articles or substantial portions of another article as it is considered to be a serious violation of Publishing Ethics principles. The Editorial Board applies prescribed sanctions in regard to such authors.
When the complaint is made against our author, the editor should contact the author about whom a complaint has been made, and the author would be given the opportunity to respond/comment on the claim. The editor may decide on the basis of the author response whether to reject the claim (if the author is responsive, has clear and convincing position) or to accept the claim (if the author waives from answer, or his/her explanations are unconvincing). The chief editor should inform a person who made complaint on the decision.
If the material containing errors was published it should be immediately corrected in the form available for the readers and index systems. Articles with detected incorrect borrowing will be corrected or retracted.
If the editorial office decides to revoke the text of the article on the basis of its examination or received information, this is informed to the author/co-authors and requested their reasoned opinion about the validity of submission to the editor-in-chief on the issue of revocation of article.
The decision to retraction of the article in the Protocol of the meeting of the editorial office of the journal. Having made the decision to withdraw the article, the editorial office indicates the cause of retraction (in the case of plagiarism detection with reference to the sources of borrowing) and the date of the retraction. Article and description articles remain on the website of the journal in the appropriate issue of the journal, but the electronic version of the text is the inscription «ОТКЛОНЕНА/RETRACTED» and the date of retraction, the same label is applied in the article and in the table of contents of the issue.
The information on the retracted articles is placed in the repertory "Publishing Ethics" in the documents "List of Retracted Articles"
Duplication claim
Duplication claim is considered by the chief editor who thoroughly investigates the contents of both publications and reveals all significant differences and supplementations. If an article does not contribute to research’ topic and novelty, it is defined as a duplicate version and is subjected to appropriate corrections.
If authors use their own published article or the article which is currently reviewed for other journal, they are obliged to give references to such research and indicate substantial difference between them.
The second article may be published in another language only under the following conditions:
- editor and/or publisher of the original article give their consent;
- the board receives compulsory notification about article’s republication;
- the chief editor believes the article is significant and being published in another language it will reach a new or different community of readers.
MEASURES AND SANCTIONS
In the event that the chief editor acknowledges violation of the Publishing Ethics principles, the journal must take the following corrective actions (depending on the violation severity):
- to reject the publication;
- to publish a notice on correcting the violation in a future issue of the journal;
- to correct the published material in the form available for the readers and indexing systems;
- to forbid the publication of materials for the period up to 3 years;
- to reject further cooperation within the Editorial Board;
- to publish an editorial concerning the ethical issues raised by received complaint;
- to remove formally the article’s material (deleting text from the journal’s website) that violates confidentiality, invades a subject's privacy or could cause serious harm);
All sanctions are imposed by the chief editor only after thorough consideration of claim and making objective and fair decision.
In cases where the violations of the above policies are found to be particularly egregious, the publisher and the chief editor reserve the right to impose additional sanctions beyond those described above.
Author(s) shall have the right to appeal a decision on violation. All appeals must be submitted in written form to the Editorial Board within 30 days of notification of the decision. The appeal must include a rebuttal of the decision, explaining in detail the author(s) rationale for why the decision was in error.