The journal of Applied Linguistics Inquiry is committed to upholding the highest standards of integrity and ethical conduct in all aspects of its publication process. Our policies are guided by, and we pledge to adhere to, the core practices and guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
This statement outlines the ethical responsibilities of the publisher, editors, reviewers, and authors, and details our procedures for identifying and managing potential misconduct. All parties working with the journal are expected to follow these ethical policies.
Integrity: The publisher is committed to ensuring that editorial decisions on manuscript submissions are final and based solely on professional judgment, academic merit, and relevance to the journal's scope. These decisions will not be affected by any commercial interests.
Oversight: The publisher supports the editors in monitoring the ethical conduct of all parties involved in the publication process.
Corrections and Retractions: The publisher is always willing to publish corrections, clarifications, and retractions involving its publications as and when needed to maintain the integrity of the academic record.
Accountability and Editorial Independence: The Editor-in-Chief is ultimately accountable for all content published in the journal. Editorial decisions to accept or reject a manuscript for publication are based solely on the paper's importance, originality, clarity, and the study's validity and relevance to the journal's scope, without interference from the publisher or any other external body.
Fair Play and Impartiality: Manuscripts will be evaluated for their intellectual content without regard to the race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.
Confidentiality: Editors and editorial staff will not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, and other editorial advisers. All submitted material is treated as confidential while under review.
Peer Review: The journal utilizes a Double-Blind Peer Review process, where the identities of both the authors and the reviewers are concealed from each other. The editorial team is responsible for preserving the anonymity of reviewers.
Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: Editors will recuse themselves from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships with any of the authors or institutions connected to the papers.
Handling Misconduct: Editors will take all reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred. In the event of suspected or alleged misconduct, the editors will follow COPE's flowcharts and guidance. This duty to act applies to both published and unpublished papers.
Contribution to Editorial Decisions: Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and, through editorial communications with the author, may also assist the author in improving the paper.
Promptness: Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse themselves from the review process.
Confidentiality: Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.
Objectivity: Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
Acknowledgment of Sources: Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation.
Disclosure and Conflict of Interest: Reviewers must not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers. They must disclose any such conflicts to the editor immediately.
Reporting Standards: Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper.
Originality and Plagiarism: The authors must ensure that they have written entirely original works. If the authors have used the work and/or words of others, this must be appropriately cited or quoted. All submissions are screened for plagiarism via appropriate software (e.g., iThenticate).
Multiple, Redundant, or Concurrent Publication: An author should not, in general, publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.
Authorship Criteria: Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. The corresponding author ensures that all appropriate co-authors are included on the paper and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.
Human or Animal Subjects: If the work involves human participants (common in applied linguistics), authors must include a statement in the manuscript confirming that the study was approved by an appropriate institutional ethics committee and that informed consent was obtained from all participants or their legal guardians.
Data Access and Retention: Authors may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data, if practicable, and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.
Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: All authors must disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project must be disclosed.
The journal of Applied Linguistics Inquiry takes all allegations of misconduct seriously and will follow COPE guidelines in all cases.
Identification: We take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where misconduct has occurred, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data fabrication/falsification.
Investigation: In cases of suspected or alleged misconduct, the Editor-in-Chief will launch an investigation. This may involve contacting the authors for an explanation and, if necessary, their institution.
Possible Misconducts include, but are not limited to:
Data Fabrication/Falsification: Making up data or results, or manipulating, changing, or omitting data.
Plagiarism: Intentionally using someone else's ideas or text as if they are one's own without proper citation.
Simultaneous Submission / Redundant Publication: Submitting the same work to multiple journals or publishing the same research in multiple papers without justification.
Improper Author Contribution: Listing authors who did not contribute significantly or failing to credit those who did.
Citation Manipulation: Including excessive citations solely to increase the citations of a given author or journal.
The journal is committed to correcting the scholarly record when necessary.
Corrections: Will be issued to correct minor, unintentional errors that do not invalidate the article's main findings.
Expressions of Concern: May be issued if there is inconclusive evidence of misconduct or if an investigation is prolonged, to alert readers to potential issues with an article.
Retractions: Will be issued for articles with seriously flawed or erroneous content, evidence of research misconduct (e.g., data fabrication), or redundant publication. The purpose of a retraction is to correct the literature, not to punish authors. A retraction notice will be published and linked to the original article.
We are committed to fair and transparent editorial processes.
Appeals: Authors who believe their manuscript was rejected due to a significant misunderstanding or error in the review process may appeal the decision. Appeals should be sent to the editorial office with a detailed explanation of the grounds for the appeal. Appeals are rarely successful and are only considered if a clear error has been made.
Complaints: Any individual who wishes to raise a complaint regarding the journal's policies, procedures, or the conduct of its editorial staff should contact the Editor-in-Chief directly. All complaints will be handled in accordance with COPE guidelines.
Author Policies: please visit author policies page.
Reviewer Policies: please visit reviewer policies page.
Artificial Intellegence Policies: please visit AI policies in publishing page.