FOR PUBLICATION IN THE JOURNAL “LINGUISTIQUE BALKANIQUE/БАЛКАНСКО ЕЗИКОЗНАНИЕ” ISSUED BY THE INSTITUTE FOR BULGARIAN LANGUAGE “PROF. LYUBOMIR ANDREYCHIN”

Publication ethics and publication malpractice statement

The present Ethical Guidelines govern the regulation of the standards for ethical conduct to which all parties involved in the publication process for the journal “Linguistique balkanique/ Балканско езикознание”, issued by the Institute for Bulgarian Language “Prof. Lyubomir Andreychin”, under the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, shall conform. The adherence to the adopted international standards of publication ethics shall also play a crucial role in the policy of the Editorial Committee and shall aim to guarantee the exclusive publication of papers of the highest possible quality. Compliance with the standards of ethical conduct and performance of obligations in observance with professional ethics is therefore expected of all parties involved in the process of Journal publication.

1. Ethical guidelines for the Editor-in-chief and the members of the Editorial Board

The Editor-in-chief and members of the Editorial board shall evaluate manuscripts exclusively on the basis of their scientific merit.

Essays and articles shall be approved for printing during the regular sessions of the journal’s Editorial board. The journal’s Editor-in-chief shall present any available publication materials, while the Editorial Committee shall approve or reject particular manuscripts/drafts based on anonymous reviews. The selection shall be made with view of professional quality and academic contribution in the respective area of scientific interest.

Neither the Editor nor any member of the Editorial Committee shall in any way consider manuscripts which present conflicts of interest arising from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions, connected to the publication text. Upon the establishment of such conflicts, the Editor or member of the Editorial Committee concerned shall be excluded from the process of review and approval/rejection of the manuscript concerned.

Whenever ethical complaints are filed concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper, the Editor and members of the Editorial Committee shall take reasonable action to ensure that the proper compliance with the ethical standards is restored.

The Editor and the members of the Editorial Board shall by all means respect the confidentiality of the reviewers and authors involved in the process of anonymous review.

The Editor-in-chief is responsible for everything published in the Journal. It is his obligation to strive to meet the needs of readers and authors, constantly improve the journal, ensure the quality of the material they publish and maintain the integrity of the academic record.

The Editor and the Editorial Committee always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.

The Editor and the members of the Editorial Committee shall be responsible for familiarizing all parties in the publication process with the present Ethical Guidelines.

The Editor and the Editorial Committee will encourage with their policies academic debate. Cogent criticisms of published work will be published unless Editors have convincing reasons why they cannot be. Authors of criticised material should be given the opportunity to respond. Studies that challenge previous work published in the journal should be given an especially sympathetic hearing.

The Editor and the Editorial Committee will respond promptly to complaints and should ensure there is a way for dissatisfied complainants to take complaints further. All complaints should be addressed to the Editor and considered at a meeting of the Editorial Committee. The results of the discussion will become available in written form to the complainants. In the case the conflict cannot be resolved at this stage the dissatisfied party is authorized to pursue legal form of action, whenever appropriate, according to the laws of the Republic of Bulgaria.

The Executive Editor is in charge for managing the conflicts of interest of the staff, authors, reviewers, Editorial Committee and International Editorial Board members.

It is the responsibility of the Editor-in-chief to ensure that research material published in the Journal conforms to internationally accepted ethical guidelines recommended by COPE (https://publicationethics.org/).

2. Publication procedures and policies

The Executive Editor and the Editorial Committee will take all reasonable steps to ensure the quality of the material they publish in the Journal. Their decisions to accept or reject a paper for publication should be based only on the paper’s importance, originality, and clarity on the basis of the results of the double-blind peer review procedure. The Journal has a declared mechanism for authors to appeal against Editorial decisions. In such cases a third anonymous reviewer is selected and the resulting report is discussed at the meeting of the Editorial Committee. For expert opinions the Committee may also turn to the members of the International Editorial Board.

The Editor and the Editorial Committee publish and regularly update the guidance to authors on everything that is expected of them. This guidance is regularly updated on the website of the Journal.

The Editor commits not to reverse decisions to accept submissions unless serious problems are identified with the submission. New Editors should not overturn decisions to publish submissions made by the previous Editor unless serious problems are identified.

3. Ethical guidelines for authors

By submitting a paper, the authors confirm their authorship of the submitted article. The journal does not require all authors of a research paper to sign the letter of submission.

Authors are obliged to identify the sources of their funding, e.g. internal funding by a university, institute, etc., or any form of external funding, and so on. Authors shall justify the significance of their scientific research while at the same time providing comprehensive detail and citations/references to their sources so that any interested parties are able to reproduce the study analysis. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical conduct and shall therefore be deemed unacceptable.

Authors shall by all means strive to ensure that their work is entirely original, and therefore wherever and whenever the work and/or words of others are used, all instances shall be appropriately acknowledged. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing conduct and shall therefore be deemed unacceptable. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing conduct and is unacceptable.

The corresponding author shall strive to ensure that there is a full consensus of all co-authors in approving the final version of the paper and its submission for publication. The publication of any part of a collective research work without the prior consent of all contributing authors is inadmissible. Submission is taken by the journal to mean that all the listed authors have agreed all of the contents. Another important condition with regard to collective research work is that all co-authors shall be able to demonstrate their significant involvement in and contribution to the research under consideration.

Authors shall state that (to the best of their knowledge) all data utilized for the purposes of their research are genuine and authentic.

In case significant errors are discovered, authors shall duly notify the editorial board so that publication could be withdrawn and revised accordingly in due time.
Redundant publication also must be avoided.

4. First publication and copyright

Original research articles submitted to the “Linguistique balkanique” must not have been published as copyrighted material elsewhere. Manuscripts under consideration by the “Linguistique balkanique” should not be submitted for review by other publication.

5. Ethical guidelines for reviewers

The Editor publishes guidance to reviewers on everything that is expected of them. This guidance is regularly updated and refers to this code.

The Editor guarantees by the way the peer review process is carried out that peer reviewers’ identities and those of the authors are protected according to the requirements of the double-blind review procedure.

The job of reviewers is crucial for the attestation and improvement of the quality of any and all materials submitted for publication, and shall be of conclusive importance in the decision making process on behalf of the Editorial board as regards the publication of materials.

Reviewers shall not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

The ethical principle of confidentiality lies at the core of any reviewer’s job. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review shall be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.

Reviews shall be conducted in an objectively, comprehensive, and accurate manner, while any observations shall be formulated clearly and supported by arguments.

Any appointed reviewer who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript, or is otherwise aware that a prompt or accurate review will be impossible, shall notify the Editor and step down from the review process.

6. Ensuring the integrity of the academic effort and pursuing misconduct

Whenever it is found that a significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distorted report has been published, it will be corrected promptly and with due prominence. If, after an appropriate investigation, an item proves to be fraudulent, it will be retracted. The retraction should be clearly identifiable to readers and indexing systems.

Editors accept the duty to act if they suspect misconduct. This duty extends to both published and unpublished papers. The Editor should not simply reject papers that raise concerns about possible misconduct. S/he accepts the ethical obligation to pursue alleged cases. S/he should first seek a response from those accused. If they are not satisfied with the response, they should ask the appropriate body (regulatory or legal body) to investigate.

The Editor should make all reasonable efforts to ensure that a proper investigation is conducted. If this does not happen, the Editors will make all reasonable attempts to persist in obtaining a resolution to the problem.

7. Relations with journal owners and publishers

The Journal is published by an academic institution that is funded by the state and by other publicly available resources of funding in Bulgaria. The Editorial independence is strictly maintained and the publication strategy and practices are the sole responsibility of the Editor and the Editorial Committee. No commercial considerations are taken into account in this and any other respect. The Editor is willing to publish criticisms, according to the same criteria used for material in the rest of the journal.