Best Practices

 

PUBLICATION ETHICS

Revista Española de Lingüística (RSEL) adheres to the principles expressed in the international standards and codes of ethics reflected in COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics): <http://www.publicationethics.org> and follows, in general terms, the Guide to good practice for scientific-academic publishing drawn up by the CSIC <http://revistas.csic.es/public/guia_buenas_practicas_CSIC.pdf>).

These guidelines serve as a code of conduct for all those involved in the management and publication of research results in RSEL.

 

1. EDITORIAL TEAM

The Editorial team includes the Editor-in-Chief, the Secretary, the Review Editor, the Editorial Board, the Advisory Board, and the Honour Committee. The functions of the Editorial Team are as follows: To promote and represent the journal in different organizations; to suggest and advocate potential improvements; to obtain the collaboration of experts in different subject areas; to perform an initial review of submitted manuscripts; to write editorials, reviews, commentaries, news items, book reviews, etc. for the journal, and to attend Editorial Team meetings. The Editorial Team is responsible for the content published and should be strongly committed to ensuring its scientific quality, avoiding misconduct in the publication of research results, and guaranteeing that submitted manuscripts are published within a reasonable time. In this respect, the following principles should be observed.

1.1. Impartiality. The Editorial Team must impartially handle all submitted manuscripts and respect the intellectual independence of authors. Authors are given the right to reply if they receive a negative review.

1.2. Confidentiality. The members of the Editorial Team should guarantee the confidentiality of all manuscripts received and their content until they have been accepted for publication. The members of the Editorial Team cannot use data, arguments, or interpretations found in unpublished manuscripts for their own research unless they have obtained the authors’ express written consent.

1.3. Manuscript review. The Editorial Team must ensure that all research articles have been evaluated by at least two specialists in the topic and that the review process has been fair and impartial. RSEL operates a double-blind peer review policy, in which both authors and reviewers are anonymous. If one of the reviews is negative, the Editorial Team can require a third review. The Editorial Team must ensure that the manuscripts received are original and monitor them for plagiarism, self-plagiarism and duplicate publication, as well as citation manipulation and falsified data. Only research articles are peer-reviewed.

1.4. Manuscript acceptance or rejection. The responsibility for accepting or rejecting manuscripts for publication rests with the Editorial Team based on the reports received. The reviewers should support their assessment of the quality of a manuscript in terms of relevance, novelty and clarity of writing. The Editorial Team may reject a manuscript without external review if the members believe it to be unsuitable for the journal if it does not reach a minimum standard level of quality, is outside the scientific aims and scope of the journal or contains evidence of scientific fraud.

1.5. Article retraction and expression of concern. The Editorial Team reserves the right to retract published articles if they are subsequently determined to be unreliable due to either unintentional error or scientific fraud and misconduct: data fabrication, manipulation or appropriation, text plagiarism, self-plagiarism and redundant or duplicate publication, omission of references to sources, use of copyrighted content without permission or justification, etc. The decision to retract is based on the need to correct the scientific record of publication and thereby ensure its integrity. In case of a conflict regarding duplicate publication caused by the simultaneous publication of the same article in two different journals, the date by which the manuscript was received by each journal will be used to decide which version/s should be retracted. If any conflict arises, the journal will ask the authors to provide an explanation and all relevant evidence for clarification and will reach a decision based on this information. The journal reserves the right to publish the retraction notice in both its print and electronic editions; the notice must mention the reasons for the retraction, to differentiate between misconduct and unintentional error. The journal will notify the responsible authorities at the authors’ institution of the retraction. The decision to retract an article should be reached as soon as possible to prevent the misleading article from being cited by other researchers. Retracted articles will remain available in the electronic edition of the journal, and will be identified clearly and unambiguously as retracted to distinguish retractions from other corrections or commentaries. Before final retraction, the journal may issue an expression of concern in which the necessary information is provided with the same wording as used for a retraction. The expression of concern will be used for as brief a period as possible and will be withdrawn or superseded, if appropriate, by formal retraction of the article.

1.6. Guidelines for the submission of original works. The instructions for manuscript preparation (text length, abstract and keywords, figure preparation, bibliographic references, etc.) must be publicly available.

1.7. Conflict of interest. Among other situations, conflict of interest may arise when the author of a manuscript is a member of the Editorial Team, has a direct personal or professional relationship with some of its members, or is closely related with previous or current research carried out by a member of the Editorial Team. Specifically, members of the Editorial Team should recuse themselves from participating in handling the manuscript when they are involved in any of the situations described or any other similar ones explained below, about an author of the manuscript.

1.8. Application of the Regulations. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for ensuring that the Regulations are implemented appropriately and that all members of the Editorial Team are familiar with them.

 

2. AUTHORS

The authors of works submitted for publication are primarily responsible for the content and are thus obligated to follow ethical guidelines intended to ensure, among other considerations, that the work is original and that authorship has been attributed appropriately. Inappropriate behaviour may lead to the retraction of published material by the procedures described above in section 1.5 of these Guidelines. Aside from its ethical implications, inappropriate behaviour may result in infringement of the intellectual property rights of the SEL and/or third parties. Accordingly, the SEL reserves the right to initiate legal action within its current institutional remit.

2.1. Publication guidelines. Manuscripts submitted for publication must be based on original, unpublished research. They must include the data obtained and used, as well as an objective discussion of the results. They must supply enough information to allow any specialist to reproduce the research and confirm or refute the interpretations defended in the manuscript. All authors must appropriately reference the sources of all ideas or phrases taken verbatim from previously published articles, by the instructions and guidelines of the journal. When illustrations are used as part of the research, the methods used to create or obtain them must be explained appropriately whenever this information is needed to understand the images. If any graphic material (e.g., figures, tables, photographs, maps, etc.) has been entirely or partially reproduced from other publications, the authors must cite the source and obtain permission, if needed, to reproduce the material. The unnecessary subdivision of articles should be avoided. If the research report is very long, it can be published in two or more parts; each part should deal with a particular aspect of the overall study.

2.2. Originality and plagiarism. All authors must ensure that the data and results reported in the manuscript are original and have not been copied, fabricated, falsified, or manipulated. Plagiarism in all forms, self-plagiarism, multiple or redundant publication and data fabrication or manipulation constitute serious ethical failings and are considered scientific fraud. Should any doubts arise about an original, either in the initial check or in the one followed by the reviewers, an anti-plagiarism program such as Turnitin https://www.turnitin.com/es will be used Authors must not submit to RSEL any manuscript that is simultaneously under consideration by another publisher and must not submit their manuscript to another publisher until they are notified that it has been rejected or have voluntarily withdrawn it from consideration. However, an article that builds upon an item published previously as a short report, brief communication or conference abstract may be published as long as it appropriately cites the earlier source it is based on, and as long as the new manuscript represents a substantial modification of the previous publication. The secondary publication is also acceptable if the later manuscript is targeted to completely different readers – for example, if the article is to be published in different languages or if one version is intended for specialists whereas the other version is intended for the public. These circumstances must be specified and the original publication must be cited appropriately.

2.3. Authorship of manuscripts. If the manuscript has more than one author, the author responsible for the work must ensure appropriate recognition of all persons who contributed significantly to the conception, planning, design and realization of the study, to obtaining the data, and to the interpretation and discussion of the results of the work. In any case, all the people who sign it share responsibility for the work presented. In addition, the main responsible for the work must ensure that all persons named as authors have reviewed and approved the final version of the manuscript and have agreed to its publication. The person responsible for the work must ensure that no person responsible for the manuscript and who meets the criteria noted above for scientific authorship has been omitted from the list of authors. This will avoid ghost authorship and gift authorship, which constitute scientific misconduct. Furthermore, an acknowledgement must be included in the article to note the contributions of other collaborators who are not authors and are not responsible for the final version of the manuscript. If the Editorial Team or the authors so request, a brief description of the individual contributions of each member of the group of co-authors may appear in the published version of the work.

2.4. Sources of information and funding. All publications that have influenced the research should be acknowledged in the manuscript; accordingly, all sources upon which information in the manuscript is based should be identified and cited in the reference list. However, references that are not relevant to the research or that refer to similar examples should not be included, and overreliance on references to research that forms part of the common body of scientific knowledge should be avoided. Authors should not use information obtained privately through conversations, correspondence or informal discussions with colleagues unless they have obtained explicit written permission from the source of the information, and the information was provided in the context of a scientific consultation. The manuscript must indicate, clearly and concisely, all sources of funding awarded for the study, and must note the public or private entity that provided the funding, and the code number assigned to each source of funding, if appropriate. This information will appear in the published version.

2.5. Significant errors in published works. When authors discover a serious error in their work, they must report this to the journal as soon as possible to modify the paper, withdraw it, retract it, or publish a correction or erratum notice. If the Editorial Team detects the potential error, the authors must then demonstrate that their work is free from error. The process to be used to resolve conflicts that may arise is described above in section 1.5

2.6. Conflict of interest. If any commercial, financial or personal relationship exists that might influence the results and conclusions of the work, a declaration explaining these circumstances must be provided at the time of submission. This information will be included in the published version of the work.

2.7. Commitment to non-discrimination. The journal is committed to reject any text that includes offensive or discriminatory linguistic practice or use.

3. REVIEWERS

External experts who participate in manuscript review play an essential role in the process that guarantees the quality of published material. They assist the Editorial Team in making their decisions, help to improve the submitted works and provide a warranty of scientific merit.

3.1. Confidentiality. Peer reviewers must consider all manuscripts as confidential documents both during and after the peer review process, until after they are published. Under no circumstances should the reviewer divulge or use any information, details, lines of reasoning or interpretations in the material to be reviewed for his or her own benefit or that of any other persons, or with the intent to harm any third parties. Only under exceptional circumstances may the reviewer obtain advice from other specialists in the subject of the manuscript, and the reviewer must inform the Editor of the journal of this fact.

3.2. Objectivity. Experts who evaluate manuscripts must judge the quality of the manuscript objectively, i.e., they must consider the background information used to formulate the hypothesis of the study, the theoretical and experimental data and their interpretation. Attention must also be given to the presentation and writing of the text. Reviewers must be specific with their criticisms and provide their comments in an objective, constructive manner. They must justify their judgments, avoid hostility and respect the authors’ intellectual independence. Peer reviewers must notify the Editor of any substantial similarities between the manuscript under review and any other published work or manuscript they are aware of, and that is under review for another publication. In addition, reviewers must draw attention to any text or data that have been plagiarized from different authors or self-plagiarized or duplicated from other works by the authors of the manuscript under review. Reviewers must also alert the journal if they suspect or are aware of any text or data that have been falsified, fabricated or manipulated.

3.3. Timely response. Peer reviewers must act promptly and provide their report by the agreed deadline and must notify the Editor’s office of possible delays regarding their assessments. In addition, they must notify the Editor if they do not feel qualified to evaluate the manuscript or if they are unable to complete their review by the agreed deadline.

3.4. Acknowledgment of sources of information. Peer reviewers must verify that previously published studies relevant to the topic have been cited.   To do so they must review the literature cited in the manuscript to suggest the removal of superfluous or redundant references, or the addition of references that were not cited.

3.5. Conflict of interest. Peer reviewers must decline to review when they suspect or are aware that they may be influenced by any of the situations potentially able to affect their judgment of the work, as described above in section 1.7. Conflict of interest may also arise when the manuscript is closely related to work the reviewer is currently performing or has previously published. In such cases, and if in doubt, the reviewer should decline to review the manuscript and return it to the Editorial Team, with an explanation of the reasons for his or her decision.

 

REFERENCES

- CSIC, Guía de buenas prácticas para la publicación: https://revistas.csic.es/public/publication_guidelines_CSIC.pdf

- COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics): http://www.publicationethics.org

- Directrices EASE (European Association of Science Editors): https://ease.org.uk/

- Ethical Guidelines for Journal Publication: http://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/0/index/ethics