Publication ethics and malpractice statement
The journal DISCOURS is strongly committed to promoting the highest ethical publication practices in accordance with acknowledged best practices and international scientific publishing standards and expects all submitting authors to also respect high standards of publication ethics.
Editorial responsibilities and peer review
The role of the editors and editorial team is to evaluate the suitability of submitted manuscripts for the journal, including: (a) whether they meet the Aims and Scope of the journal and (b) the overall quality of the manuscript. Editors will ensure the prompt and fair handling of the entire review process. Manuscripts will be evaluated without regard to race, gender, country of origin, ethnicity or religion.
Peer review is essential to the journal in assisting in making editorial decisions and assisting authors in manuscript improvement. Articles submitted are reviewed by at least two independent referees. These can be member of our international scientific board or outside specialists with particular expertise in the topic of the manuscript. Should their respective opinions differ strongly, a third reviewer will be asked to provide his/her opinion.
Both the referee and the author remain by default anonymous throughout the “double blind” review process. Prior to sending submissions to reviewers, DISCOURS takes all necessary steps to ensure that the identities of authors are masked. However reviewers can reveal their identity to the author if they choose explicitly to do so.
Referees are selected according to their expertise in their particular field. They should indicate relevant publications not cited in the manuscript and point out any similarities with previously published works. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts with conflicts of interest, competitive, financial, or collaborative. If a potential referee feels unqualified to review the manuscript, he/she should notify the editors immediately and decline the proposal.
The criteria used for evaluating submissions are available on the journal’s website. Referees are requested to evaluate whether the manuscript, is methodologically sound, contains results which are clearly presented and support the conclusions, contains an appropriate bibliography and makes a significant contribution to the field. Referees judge each paper based on the following scale: Accepted with no revision; Accepted with minor revision; Accepted with major revision; Resubmission or Rejection. 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 should expect to receive reviewer reports in a prompt manner, normally within four to six weeks review.
Publication and authorship
Author(s) need to ensure that the submitted article is the work of the submitting author(s) and is not plagiarized, 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. Appropriate citation of previously published works must always be included. 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. If the findings described by authors in their articles result from research programs that have benefited from financial support or funding, relevant disclosures shall be made by authors.
Any cases of ethical misconduct will be considered very seriously. In cases of proven scientific misconduct, plagiarism, or fraudulent publication, the editorial board, in collaboration with the publisher, will take appropriate action to clarify the situation, publish an erratum, or retract the work in question.