THE JOURNAL’S ETHICAL PRINCIPLES OF AUTHORSHIP, REVIEW AND PUBLICATION OF MANUSCRIPTS
By sending text or illustration to Sociological Problems, the author agrees to submit the copyright for announcing, publishing and distributing to the Journal. Contributions to Sociological Problems are subjected to review by anonymous and independent referees. The copyrights on all published texts and illustrations are property of Sociological Problems. All parties involved in the publication process (authors, editors, reviewers) are required to adhere to the following ethical standards which are developed in compliance with the Code of Conduct and the Best Practice Guidelines of COPE (Committee of Publication Ethics).
Academic Integrity
• By submitting their manuscript for publication, the authors declare that the submitted text is entirely their own work and that it has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere, that all used sources of data and knowledge are acknowledged and appropriately referred to and cited, and that the manuscript does not contain inaccurate, deliberately falsified or fabricated data. The authors should inform the editors about any significant inaccuracies or errors which they notice subsequent to submission or upon the publication of their paper.
• The reviewers are expected to evaluate the papers they have agreed to review in accordance with the highest academic standards in their field of expertise, to declare any possible conflict of interest which could bias their review, to decline to review manuscripts that they are not competent to review, and to report in their reviews any kind of noticed academic misconduct, including errors, inaccuracies, a lack of important references, plagiarism, etc. The reviewers may not use any part of the reviewed text in their own research before the text’s publication.
• Being the final decision-makers about the publication of each submission, the editors are the guarantors of the integrity of Sociological Problems’ publication record.
Fair and Transparent Peer Review Process
• All received manuscripts which fall under the scope of Sociological Problems (as the latter has been described on the journal’s home page) are sent for a blind review to two independent reviewers. Exceptions are made for invited papers and for book reviews which are only subject to non-blind editorial estimation. If the assessments of the two reviewers differ significantly, the paper is sent to a third reviewer. The final decision about the publication of a submitted text is taken by the editor-in-chief. Once taken, the final decision may not change unless, in the case of a positive decision, a serious fraudulence has been discovered in the accepted paper.
• The editors’ decision about the publication of a submitted manuscript is based entirely on the manuscript’s relevance to the scope and the manuscript’s academic quality. The decision is taken without regard to the author’s gender, nationality, citizenship, academic or institutional position, religious affiliation, political or sexual orientation.
Confidentiality
• Both the editors and the reviewers are obliged to treat submitted manuscripts as anonymous and confidential during the whole review process.
• The editors may not disclose the reviewers’ identities.
Editorial manuscript processing
1. Author submits manuscript.
2. Managing editor screens manuscript and assesses adherence to aim and scope of Journal accepts or returns to author.
3. Manuscript sent for double blind review to two reviewers.
4. Reviewers rigorously assess manuscript and send review to the Journal.
5. Editor in Chief decides whether to accept the manuscript or send it back to author for revision.
6. Author revise and resubmit the manuscript. Editor in Chief may return to one of the reviewers to determine whether the revisions respond to the reviewer’s comments.
7. Editor in Chief confirms the final decision. If positive sends for publication.
8. Manuscript published.
Academic manuscript review form - download