Publishing Ethics Statement

(Last updated 27 November 2024)
 

John Benjamins Publishing Company is committed to meeting high standards of ethical behavior in all its publications. This statement outlines the publishing ethics responsibilities of the publisher, authors, peer reviewers and editors. We follow the guidance of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), which provides advice and resources on publication ethics and research and publication misconduct.

We expect our publishing partners, editors, authors and peer reviewers to uphold any relevant confidentiality arrangements for each book or journal, to raise concerns in the case of any suspected breach of ethics, and to disclose any conflicts of interest.

Concerns in these respects about research published by John Benjamins Publishing Company should be raised with the relevant (journal) editor(s) and/or the publisher (ethicsbenjamins.nl).

AUTHOR’S RESPONSIBILITIES

The authors’ central obligation is to present a concise, accurate account of the research performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to public sources of information to permit others to repeat the work.

The submitted manuscript must contain unpublished original work and not be under consideration for publication by any other journal or in another book. Duplicate publications are never acceptable. For the rights of authors to re-use their own work, and deposit pre-publication versions, see also our Author Rights Policy

Fragmentation of research papers is not acceptable. Publications should be organized so that each paper gives a complete account of a particular aspect of the research.

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the concept, design, execution, or interpretation of the research study. All those who have made significant contributions should be offered the opportunity to be listed as authors. Other individuals who have contributed to the study should be acknowledged, but not identified as authors.

(Addition 22 March 2023) All authors are accountable for the originality, validity, and integrity of the paper; for this reason, no Artificial Intelligence qualifies as author. See also the section on ‘Artificial Intelligence’.

The corresponding author, who submits the paper for publication, should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper, and that all co-authors have seen the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

All (co-)authors have an obligation to provide prompt retractions or correction of errors in published works. Any individual unwilling or unable to accept appropriate responsibility for a paper should not be a co-author.

Authors should list their affiliation(s), limited to those institutions with which the author has or had a formal relationship at the time of the research and/or the preparation of the publication.

Artificial Intelligence

(Addition 22 March 2023) Artificial Intelligence (AI) does not qualify for the role of author (see above) and should not be listed as such. If AI was used in the research or preparation of the paper, this should be declared and explained in the description of the tools or methods used. Any requirements concerning copyright and plagiarism continue to apply.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the unauthorized and unacknowledged use of someone else’s words, ideas, processes, or results in a manner that can mislead others into thinking the material is your own. It may be intentional, or may result from honest error, a lack of knowledge of proper publication practices, or poor judgement, but it is always a serious issue that can have negative implications for an author in terms of reputation and career, as well as legal consequences when copyright is infringed.

We do not tolerate plagiarism in any of our publications. We reserve the right to check all submissions through appropriate plagiarism checking tools. Submissions containing suspected plagiarism, in whole or part, will be rejected. If plagiarism is discovered after publication, we will act according to the section below on “Correcting the Scholarly Record”.

Duplicate or redundant publication, or ‘self-plagiarism’, occurs when a work, or substantial parts of a work, is published more than once by the author(s) of the work without appropriate cross-referencing or justification for the overlap. This can be in the same or a different language. We do not support substantial overlap between publications, unless there is editorial agreement that this will strengthen the academic discourse; the author has obtained approval from the original publication; and an acknowledgment and citation of the original source are included in the article.

Libel, Defamation and Freedom of Expression

Freedom of expression is critical to us as publishers, but we do not support publishing false statements that harm the reputation of individuals, groups, or organisations. Criticism of other research must be professional, substantive, and free of polemics.

Manipulation, Falsification and Fabrication of Data

It is considered academic malpractice to fabricate, falsify and manipulate data. Creating or modifying tables, figures or images for publication can sometimes misrepresent the results or their significance. We expect authors to avoid modifying the presentation in their publication in such a way that it leads to the falsification, fabrication, or misrepresentation of the data.

Research involving Humans or Animals

(Updated 20 April 2023) Research involving humans or animals should conform to international ethical and legal standards that apply to the field and type of research in question. If the research is of the type that would at the authors' institution(s) or in general practice within the discipline be considered to require approval from an ethics committee/review board, this approval should be obtained, and a statement to this effect should be included in the article.

We expect authors to respect human participants’ right to privacy. If any information included in the article from or about participants could lead to those participants being individually identified and recognized, authors should take care to anonymize the information to the best extent possible, and to make sure that they have obtained permission from those participants to include the information in publication. A statement regarding this should be included in the article.

Conflicts of Interest and Funding

Authors submitting a book or journal manuscript, editors, and reviewers of John Benjamins Publishing Company publications, as well as our employees, are required to declare any potential conflicts of interest that could interfere with the objectivity or integrity of a publication. These may be financial, non-financial, professional, contractual or personal in nature.

If an author received any funding for the research on which the publication reports, other than their employment by the institution(s) listed as their affiliation(s), this should be mentioned in a Funding Statement in the publication.

Data and Supporting Evidence

We support transparency and openness around data, code, and other materials associated with research. We expect authors to maintain accurate records of supporting evidence necessary to allow others to understand, verify, and replicate new findings, and to supply or provide access to this supporting evidence on reasonable request. We encourage authors to deposit data in a suitable repository or storage location, for sharing and further use by others, and to include a Data Availability Statement in their article, describing where their data may be found and what the options and licenses are for its access and use.

EDITORIAL RESPONSIBILITIES

The editor of a journal has complete responsibility and authority to accept a submitted paper for publication or to reject it. The editor may confer with associate editors or reviewers for an evaluation to use in making this decision.

An editor should give prompt and unbiased consideration to all manuscripts offered for publication, judging each on its merits without regard to race, gender, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors, and respecting the intellectual independence of the authors. Situations that may lead to real or perceived conflicts of interest should be avoided. (See also the section below on Peer Review.)

The editor and the editorial staff should not disclose any information about a manuscript under consideration to anyone other than reviewers and potential reviewers. Unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations disclosed in a submitted manuscript should not be used in an editor’s own research except with the consent of the author.

An editor presented with convincing evidence that the substance or conclusions of a published paper are erroneous should contact the publisher about the publication of a correction or the retraction of the publication.

PEER REVIEW & REVIEWER’S RESPONSIBILITIES

Review by independent experts provides advice to editors of academic journals and series concerning the publication of research results. It is an integral component of the scholarly enterprise.

Reviewers should judge objectively the quality of the research reported without regard to race, gender, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors, and respecting the intellectual independence of the authors. In no case is personal criticism appropriate. Reviewers must disclose conflicts of interest resulting from direct competitive, collaborative, or other relationships with any of the authors, and avoid cases in which such conflicts preclude an objective evaluation.

Reviewers should explain and support their judgments in such a way that editors and authors may understand the basis of their comments. Reviewers should point out 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. A reviewer should also call to the editor’s attention any substantial similarity between the manuscript under consideration and any published paper or manuscript submitted concurrently to another journal.

Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for competitive gain. A reviewer should treat a manuscript sent for review as a confidential document. It should neither be shown to nor discussed with others except, in special cases, to persons from whom specific advice may be sought; in that event, the identities of those consulted should be disclosed to the editor. Reviewers should not use or disclose unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations contained in a manuscript under consideration, except with the consent of the author. See also the note on the use of AI below.

Final decisions on publication are made by the top-level editor(s) of the journal. The journal editors are responsible for selecting peer reviewers. Members of the editorial board may be asked for suggestions of suitable peer reviewers and may be asked to be a peer reviewer themselves, but it is not the case that only board members can be reviewers.

Editors and members of the editorial board who have a conflict of interest will not be included in the peer review or decision-making of the relevant submission. Such a conflict of interest would be the case if the editor or board member is an author of the submission, or is a member or direct competitor of the research project on which the article reports. Board members with such a conflict of interest will not be asked for advice on or peer review of the submission. If an editor has such a conflict of interest, the submission will be handled by one of the other editors of the journal; if there only is one editor, the editorial board will be asked to appoint a board member to handle the peer review process and make the final decision on that submission.

In the case of special, thematic issues the peer review process may be handled by the guest editor(s) for that issue. If a guest editor has a conflict of interest related to one of the articles in the special issue — other than the (guest) editor’s ‘Introduction’ — the peer review should be handled by someone other than that (guest) editor. The final decision remains the responsibility of the top-level editors of the journal, who may require additional assessment of papers.

A note on the use of Artificial Intelligence

(Addition 10 April 2024)  It is not permitted to use generative AI — such as ChatGPT etc. — to generate a review report. The manuscript is provided to reviewers under confidentiality and by uploading someone else’s materials into the training set and/or knowledge base of a generative AI product, the reviewer is breaking that confidentiality. This also extends to the review report, which contains information from the manuscript.

PUBLISHER’S RESPONSIBILITIES

We strive to prevent editorial independence from being compromised through conflicts of interest, fear, or other corporate, business, financial or political influence. We do not discriminate against authors, editors or peer reviewers based on personal characteristics or identity.

Editorial decisions on articles submitted to our journals are made by the journal's editors, who are not in the employment of the publisher, and are based on independent peer review reports. John Benjamins Publishing Company has a role in deciding on taking on the publishing of an established journal or the creation of a new journal, which will also include looking at the feasibility of such a journal to be financially sustainable in the long term. The publisher will also advise on emerging standards, policy changes, ethics etc., but will not be involved in decisions on individual journal articles.

Book proposals are initially considered by in-house acquisition editors and/or series editors who are external to the publisher. The series editors decide whether the proposed book is on topic for their specific series and of sufficient academic quality to merit publication after consultation with their editorial board and additional advisors, including peer reviewers of the proposal and/or manuscript. The publisher determines whether the proposed book has sufficient market potential to make publication feasible. For articles in edited volumes, the volume editors are primarily responsible for any assessment, peer review and decisions, while the assessment of the entire volume by the series editors may also impact on individual papers.

John Benjamins Publishing Company will not tolerate abusive behavior towards our staff and others involved in the publishing process on our behalf, and we have the right to take action to protect those from such abuse.

We grant licenses and subsidiary rights to third-parties which permit the reproduction, reuse or adaptation of our content in different contexts, languages and territories. Where we license volume rights, we and our authors retain the right to withhold approval for publication if we have concerns about the integrity and accuracy of the licensed edition. When any product (chapter, article, book or journal volume) is purchased or subscribed to, we supply it only in its totality to the customer, who is not entitled to alter its content in any way that is inconsistent with the licensing terms under which it was published. Any sale of disaggregated products is subject to the contracts with the copyright holders of the original products.

We will never be complicit in censorship and are committed to the principle and promotion of freedom of speech and expression. As an international publisher, our goal is to serve the academic community in all countries around the world. We support COPE’s Statement on Censorship.

Correcting the Scholarly Record

John Benjamins Publishing Company takes its responsibility to maintain the integrity and completeness of the scholarly record of our content very seriously. Our policy is based on best practice in the academic publishing community.

Where we are made aware of fraudulent research or research misconduct by an author in one of our publications, our primary concern is the integrity of content in that publication. We work with the relevant editor(s), COPE, and other appropriate institutions or organisations, to investigate.

Erratum/Corrigendum

An Erratum/Corrigendum is a statement that briefly describes a correction(s) resulting from errors or omissions. If an author is found to have made a small error, not affecting the validity of the research in the article, the journal will issue a Corrigendum. If the journal is found to have made an error, they will issue an Erratum. Any effects on the conclusions of the paper should be noted. The corrected article is not removed from the online journal but notice of erratum/corrigendum is given. The Erratum/Corrigendum is made freely available to all readers and is linked to the corrected article.

Minor errors that do not affect the integrity of the metadata or a reader’s ability to understand an article and that do not involve a scientific error or omission will be corrected at the discretion of the Publisher. In such a case, the original article is removed and replaced with a corrected version. The date the correction is made is noted on the corrected article.

Retractions

Retractions are issued if there is clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct or honest error; if the findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper referencing, permission or justification; if the work is plagiarized; or if the work reports unethical research. Retractions can be published by the authors when they have discovered substantial scientific errors; in other cases, the Editors or Publisher may conclude that retraction is appropriate.

A Retraction is a notice that the paper should not be regarded as part of the scientific literature. To protect the integrity of the record, the retracted article is not removed from the online journal, but notice of retraction is given, is made freely available to all readers, and is linked to the retracted article. In all cases, the retraction indicates the reason for the action and who is responsible for the decision. If a retraction is made without the unanimous agreement of the authors, that is also noted.

In rare and extreme cases involving legal infringement, the Publisher may retract or remove an article. Bibliographic information about the article will be retained to ensure the integrity of the scientific record.

Books

In the case of books, if someone raises a legal, ethical or security concern about a John Benjamins Publishing Company publication, we would inform the author(s) and editor(s) involved. Our next step would be to investigate the concern and, if appropriate, address it through dialogue or negotiation with any third parties involved or by referring it to a relevant institution for investigation. If the concern relates to the integrity or accuracy of the content itself, we would consider issuing a correction, or a retraction and withdrawal from sale. Where any content is retracted, we would do so in a way that still preserves the integrity of the academic record and of other affiliated works (for example, other volumes in a series). This includes maintaining any associated metadata and, if legally possible, the abstract.

The publisher will consider appeals on editorial decisions for books, if there is reason to believe that the process did not follow our code of ethics as described in this Statement.

CONTACT

Anyone who believes that research published by John Benjamins Publishing Company or the publication process has not been carried out in line with the principles described in this Statement, should raise their concern with the relevant (journal) editor and/or email ethicsbenjamins.nl.