Publication Ethics

Afro-Ásia seeks to abide by best international practices on ethical matters. Editors will comply with the relevant Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines in dealing with errors or retractions, and in handling their everyday editorial duties so as to enforce observance of authors’ and reviewers’ ethical requirements.

Allegations and suspicions of academic misconduct regarding articles already published, under review, or in the process of publication in our journal will be independently assessed by our Ethics Committee. Further information may be found here.

Editors, authors, and reviewers must honor the following standards.

Editors

The editors must initially verify that each submitted manuscript is original and has not been previously published, in whole or in part. Accepted manuscripts will be subject to a double-blind peer review, which will base the editors’ decision to accept, reject, or request revisions for the manuscript. The editors must ensure that the manuscripts’ intellectual content will be assessed without regard to gender, sexual orientation, race, age, religion, political beliefs, citizenship, academic degree etc. of the authors.

The editors must ensure that all information related to the submission is kept confidential. The editors will not use submitted data, hypotheses, argumentation or conclusions for their own research, unless they previously obtain the authors’ written consent.

Editors must act promptly and transparently in case of suspected malpractice regarding articles already published or in process of publication, in accordance to COPE guidelines, ensuring the authors’ right to ample defense. Editors are responsible for the disclosure of any corrections and retractions, committing themselves to keep and preserve all corresponding documentation and communication.

Authors

Authors must ensure that the manuscript is entirely original work. Authorship should be limited to those effectively responsible for the research and the writing. All authors must have seen and agreed beforehand to the version submitted, as well as to their status as co-authors.

Authors may not submit the manuscript concurrently to more then one journal. Authors may not publish redundant or partially redundant manuscripts (though the republication of integral, adapted, revised or translated versions of the published article that explicitly acknowledge the first publication in Afro-Ásia are allowed). The practice known as “salami publication” is strictly discouraged.

All sources of data and bibliographic citations relevant to the research must be fully referenced. The article should accurately reflect the findings of the original research and present an objective discussion of its significance. Authors are responsible for keeping the raw data related to their manuscript for the time being, and to provide such data for review if so requested by the editors.

Authors must report to the editors any significant error or inaccuracy eventually discovered in the submitted manuscript, at any point before or after publication.

Reviewers

All information submitted for review must be treated as confidential and privileged. Manuscripts should be assessed as objectively and impartially as possible. Reviewers should be respectful of the authors’ theoretical affiliations and methodological choices. Manuscripts should not be rejected based solely on the grounds of theoretical divergences. Objections, corrections and modification requests should be clearly, constructively stated and supported by arguments.
Manuscript reviewers should verify that all sources and bibliography upon which the arguments depend upon are fully referenced. Editors must be promptly warned if the reviewer perceives overlaps or similarities with any other published work.

Reviewers must inform the editors of any circumstance that may prevent the completion of the review in time, so that the editors may adjust the deadline schedule or send the manuscript to another reviewer. Reviewers should pay particular attention to possible conflicts of interest and notify the editors immediately when an author’s anonymity is compromised.