Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

We are strongly committed to promoting the highest ethical publication practices and expect all submitting authors to uphold the high standards of publication ethics as set out by the Commission on Publication Ethics (COPE). Any cases of ethical misconduct are treated very seriously and will be dealt with in accordance with the COPE guidelines.

Publication and authorship

Author(s) need to ensure that the submitted article is the work of the submitting author(s) and is not plagiarised, wholly or in part. They must also make sure that the submitted article is original, is not wholly or in part re-publication of the author’s earlier work, and contains no fraudulent data. It is also their responsibility to check that all copyrighted material within the article has permission for publication and that material the author does not personally hold copyright in is not reproduced without permission.

Author’s responsibilities

Foreign Language Studies is a peer-reviewed journal, and author(s) are obliged to participate in our double blind peer review process.

Author(s) need to ensure that all data in the submitted article are real and authentic. They must confirm that they have significantly contributed to the research submitted in the article and that all and only the contributors to the article are listed as authors. It is their responsibility to ensure that no participants are harmed, physically or mentally, during the research which results in the article, and that personal details of the participants, who have not agreed for to be released or where the release of personal details could endanger a participant, are fully anonymised. This applies both to textual citations and to images and any supplementary audio or visual material. Authors should also ensure that all authors provide retractions or corrections of mistakes.

Finally, authors should ensure that every manuscript submitted to the journal has been read and corrected for clarity, grammar and spelling. On acceptance, author(s) will be obliged to sign a legally binding form confirming that the above standards have been met which will make them personally liable for any breaches for which civil or criminal charges can be brought.

Peer review and responsibility for the referees

Both Referees and Author(s) remain anonymous throughout the “double blind” review process. Referees are selected according to their expertise in their particular fieldworks. Submitted papers are reviewed by at least two independent referees and by our editorial staff.

Referees are requested to evaluate whether the manuscript has already been published in another journal, is methodologically sound, contains results which are clearly presented and support the conclusions, contains an appropriate bibliography and makes a significant contribution to the social sciences. Referees judge each paper according to the following scale: Strongly recommended for publication; Revise for publication; Revise for further review; and Denied publication. A decision is sent to the corresponding author, along with recommendations made by the Referees. The editors are responsible for the final decision to accept/reject the manuscript.

Authors are entitled to expect that referees or other individuals privy to the work an author submits to a journal will not steal their research ideas or plagiarise their work. Further, Referees hold responsibility to be objective in their judgments; have no conflict of interest with respect to the research, with respect to the authors and/or with respect to the research funders; point out relevant published work which is not yet cited by the author(s); and treat the reviewed articles confidentially.

Editorial responsibilities

Editors hold full authority to reject/accept an article; only accept a paper when reasonably certain; promote publication of correction or retraction when errors are found; preserve anonymity of reviewers; and have no conflict of interest with respect to articles they reject/accept.

If an editor feels that there is likely to be a perception of a conflict of interest in relation to his/her handling of a submission, s/he will declare it to the chief editor. The chief editor will select referees and make all final decisions on the paper. This procedure also applies if a paper is submitted by one of the Editors, if a paper is submitted by an author who is at the same institution as one of the editors, if a paper is submitted by an author whose relationship with one of the editors might create the perception of bias (e.g. in terms of close friendship, co-authorship or conflict/rivalry) and the editor declares a potential conflict of interest.

Publishing ethics issues

Members of the Editorial Board ensure the monitoring and safeguarding of the publishing ethics. This comprises the strict policy on plagiarism and fraudulent data, the strong commitment to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed, and the strict preclusion of business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards.

Whenever it is recognised that a published paper contains a significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distorted report, it will be corrected promptly. If, after an appropriate investigation, an item proves to be fraudulent, it will be retracted. The retraction will be clearly identifiable to readers and indexing systems.