ETHICAL POLICY

Publishing Practice of "URDU REVIEW" has a certain ethical policy that has been developed keeping in view the COPE guidelines and HEC ethical guidelines for the research journals. Some key points of it are as follows:

Policy for the Editor(s):

·      Editor is wholly responsible to establish/maintaining the quality of the journal.

·      He/She has full authority to accept or reject any research paper keeping in view the publishing policy of (URDU REVIEW) or the standard of the topic/ references/ material/ presentation/ language of the submitted paper and professional demands as well.

·      Editor ensures the process of blind peer review of every paper.

·      Editor ensures the Plagiarism Check of every paper and strictly follows the HEC Plagiarism Policy regarding this matter.

·      Editor is bound to follow the journal's policy without any institutional pressure.

·      Editor would provide corrigendum for any correction, clarification, and apologies when required.

·      Editor may appoint Members of Editorial Board/ Advisory Board and change them anytime.

·      Editor ensures smooth functioning of the journal and conducting the editorial board meeting on regular basis.

·      Editor would disregard the discriminating factors, e.g. Gender, race, ethnicity, religious belief, cultural sentiments, political affiliation, seniority, and/or institutional association of the author(s) while selecting articles for publication.

·      Editor would try to promptly respond to the author (s) of the papers submitted for publishing, for any query.

·      Editor will not edit any submitted paper which would have any conflict of interest. He /She is responsible to ask the reviewers/evaluators also for disclosing any conflict of interest regarding the submitted research paper to ensure impartiality.

·      Editor ensures the confidentiality of the content of the manuscript before publishing at his and reviewer's end.

Policy for the Author(s)

·      An author (principal) is a person who has significantly authored the research paper. One who has contributed to some extent or helped out the author in the write-up should not be the author.

·      Someone who has contributed particularly in any design, analysis, etc./can be credited as co-author.

·      Author would be fully responsible for the presented study.

·      It is the author's (s)' responsibility to ensure that the research paper and data contain adequate details and references to the sources of information to allow others to reproduce the results. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

·      Author(s) is required to provide an undertaking stating that the submitted manuscript contains solely his original work and no material has been copied without reference from anywhere. If someone coauthors the paper then his contribution should be explicitly stated in that undertaking.

·      Article once submitted by the author to "URDU REVIEW" will not be submitted to any other journal till the time he/she would have been conveyed about rejection from our side. Concurrent submission of the same manuscript to more than one journal is an unethical publishing behavior and it is highly unacceptable.

·      If any question arises about the accuracy or validity of the research work during the review process, the author(s) should provide raw data to the Editor.

·      The author(s) should disclose any conflict of interest at the earliest possible stage keeping in view the editorial and advisory board, employment, consultancies, honoraria, patent applications/registrations, grants, or other funding.

·      Authors are supposed to allow the journal while submitting the paper to reserve the right to circulate the article.

·      Authors are supposed to bind with the journal's policy when submitting a paper to "URDU REVIEW".

·      The review process can last between 1-2 months or longer and during this period the author(s) reserves the right to contact the Editor to ask about the status of the review. In the case of rejection, the author(s) reserves the right to publish the article elsewhere. In case of revisions, the author(s) must provide an exposition of all corrections made in the manuscript. In case of dissatisfaction over the decision of rejection, the author can appeal the decision by contacting the Editor.

Policy for the Reviewer(s)

The review process allows the author(s) to improve their manuscript through editorial communications. Scholars/Reviewers accepting to review a research paper have an ethical responsibility to complete this assignment professionally. The quality, credibility, and reputation of a journal also depend on the peer-review process. The peer-review process relies on the trust and demands that a reviewer is supposed to fulfill ethically. The reviewers should:

·     Immediately inform the editor if they do not have the subject expertise required to carry out the review.

·      It is their humble responsibility to punctually submit the review report on time. They should immediately inform the editor of any possible delays.

·      The data included in the research paper is confidential and the reviewer is not allowed to use it for his/her personal study or any other academic or professional purpose.

·      Reviewers would consider the research paper as a confidential document. They must not discuss its content on any platform except in cases where professional advice is being sought with the authorization of the editor. They are bound not to disclose the details of any research paper before its publication without the prior approval of the editor.

·      A reviewer must declare any conflicting interests (e.g. Personal, financial, intellectual, professional, political, or religious). He/She should declare if the research paper under review is the same as his/her presently conducted the study.

·      A reviewer should be honest enough to declare if He/She is biased at any level towards the manuscript submitted.

·      The reviewer may justifiably criticize a manuscript but it would be inappropriate to resort to personal criticism on the author(s). He/she is supposed to objectively review with a consideration of high academic, scholarly, and scientific standards.

·      Reviewer should bring into the editor's notice, before writing the evaluation report, if the research paper is based on any previous research study or is a replica of an earlier work, or the work is plagiarized. Moreover, if the reviewer suspects the given results to be untrue/unrealistic/fake, all these points should also be identified to the editor.

·      For writing an evaluation report, reviewers are sent a prescribed form(s) from the editor and they are supposed to share their comments on that form.

·      The editor will surely consider the reviewer's comments and may send the paper to someone else for another opinion or send it back to the author(s) for revision before making any decision. But the final decision about publishing a research paper (either accept or reject) will solely rest with the editor. A reviewer cannot challenge the decision of the editor at any forum.