Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement

The following Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement aligns with the recommendations of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics): Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors and the Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers.

EDITOR’S DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Publication decisions
The editor-in-chief is responsible for the selection of the articles to be published in the journal, based on the recommendations and comments received from the peer reviewers, at the end of the double-blind peer review process. The editor-in-chief consults the other editors and guest-editors, as appropriate, in making the selection and in deciding the timing of publication for each submission.
The manuscripts submitted for publication shall be evaluated and selected for publication based exclusively on the quality of the manuscript, the policies of the journal’s editorial board, and the legal provisions in force regarding libel, copyright, and plagiarism, without taking into consideration the author’s age, career status, race, gender, sexual orientation, religious and political beliefs, ethnicity, national origin or citizenship.

Conflict of interest
Editors who find themselves in a situation of conflict of interests should notify the editor-in-chief and recuse themselves from handling a particular manuscript. The conflict of interests may include personal, commercial, financial, intellectual, professional, political or religious considerations.

Confidentiality
The editorial staff shall only disclose information about a journal submission to the people directly involved in the peer review and publication process, as required and appropriate. Exception to this provision is the allegation of plagiarism and/other fraudulent behaviour, when the content of the manuscript shall be disclosed to third parties, as described below, under Prevention and Fight Against Plagiarism.
The editors shall not disclose any information about ongoing processes of editorial decisions to any unauthorised third parties. Exception to this is the case of unethical editorial behaviour.
Since the journal uses a double-blind peer review process, the identity of the author shall not be disclosed to the peer reviewers during the peer-review process, nor should the identity of the reviewers be divulged to the author or any third parties. The identity of the reviewer can be made public, with the reviewer’s express permission, at the end of the peer-review process, in the journal’s yearly reviewers acknowledgement list, which does not link the reviewers to the manuscript they had reviewed, nor with the specific issue in which the manuscript might have been published.
The editorial staff shall not use the information in an unpublished manuscript for their own professional gain, nor to the advantage of colleagues or associates, without the author(s)’s explicit written consent.

Prevention and Fight against Plagiarism and other forms of fraudulent conduct
Authors of the journal must be aware and understand that Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Philologia intends to prevent, and also sanctions attempts and acts of plagiarism and other forms of fraudulent conduct, including but not limited to the fabrication and/or falsification of data. Therefore, authors are hereby advised that:
– Plagiarism attempts or other fraudulent actions discovered and documented during the review process
(Editorial Office, peer review) may lead to: a) rejection of the manuscript for publication; b) official information of the higher education or research institution of the author’s affiliation; and c) information of the scholarly community and public opinion.
– Upon notification on allegation of plagiarism or other fraudulent actions for any article that has been already published in Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Philologia, and following the thorough verification of the notification, the Editorial Office may take the following steps: a) contact the Index of allegations of plagiarized works in Romania; b) follow the procedure in place for plagiarism attempts or other fraudulent actions discovered and documented during the review process; c) officially inform the higher education or research institution of the author’s affiliation, making available all necessary documents (including the author’s responsible declaration of originality); d) advise the most important international databases about the allegation of plagiarism; and e) publish (on the site, etc.) its official position on the matter.

As conceptual and general guidelines on plagiarism, the journal Studia UBB refers to: “What Constitutes
Plagiarism?”, in “Harvard Guide to Using Sources”, available here: https://usingsources.fas.harvard.edu/what-constitutes-plagiarism
See also: https://researcheracademy.elsevier.com/uploads/2020-
06/RA_HEADT%20Centre%20Webinar%20on%20Plagiarism_FINAL.pdf

AUTHOR'S DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Reporting standards
The author(s) should submit original manuscripts derived from their own research. The paper should be
objective and accurate and should not contain libellous, discriminatory, illegal or confidential content.
All sources used in the paper must be referenced appropriately. The misrepresentation and/or distortion of the cited sources is unacceptable.
The author(s) is/are solely responsible and accountable for the content of the manuscript.
Before submission, the author(s) should make sure that they respect the journal’s guidelines for authors.

Authorship
Authorship of the manuscript includes the person or people who was/were actively and creatively involved in generating the idea of the manuscript, in the research from which the manuscript derives, in building the argumentation, in the design, writing, interpretation, development of the paper, and who take(s) responsibility for the entire content of the manuscript.
The author(s) can list in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript the name of all parties who might have contributed to the completion of the article (by funding the research project, supervising or mentoring the research, making comments and suggestions for the draft, contributing to an intellectual debate on the topic etc.), but who cannot claim authorship.
Disputes referring to authorship should be solved between/among the authors. The editorial staff will not
investigate, judge, nor mediate such disputes. The resolutions should, however, be communicated to the editors, if such disputes emerge post-publication and in case a correction has to be made public.
“Ghost”, “Gift”, or “Guest” authorship is considered unacceptable. More information on the terms is available here: https://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts-new/changes-authorship

Copyright
If the manuscript includes copyrighted materials, the author shall have obtained express written permission for their use from the copyright owner before submitting the manuscript to Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Philologia.

Multiple, redundant or parallel publication 
The authors should not simultaneously submit the manuscript to other journals while under consideration by Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Philologia.
Re-publishing the same research with another journal is considered unacceptable conduct.
Translated versions of the articles published in Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Philologia can be published elsewhere only if the author(s) acknowledge(s) the journal as the first venue of publication, in a complete bibliographical entry, published with the translation.
When submitting a manuscript, the author(s) must present to the editor all related papers, such as conference presentations, drafts on preprint servers etc.

Errors in published works
If the author or a third party discovers a serious error in a published paper, they should immediately contact the journal and present relevant evidence. In such cases, the author and the editor shall work together for the retraction or correction of the paper, as appropriate.

Conflict of interests
The author(s) shall disclose any situation of conflict of interests in which they might find themselves, if relevant to the content of the manuscript or its publication. The conflict of interests may derive from personal, commercial, financial, intellectual, professional, political or religious considerations.