Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement

Journal of Language and Translation Studies (LTS) is a member of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the ethical policy of the journal endorses the COPE guidelines for publication ethics.

Journal's Membership link

The ethical policy of LTS is based on COPE's best practice guidelines for journal editors. The Editorial Board, Reviewers, and Authors are encouraged to study these guidelines, If they encounter any issues, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, or data falsification/fabrication in submitted or published articles, they should contact the Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Reza Pishghadam at pishghadam@um.ac.ir or the publisher's principal contact  at fumpress@um.ac.ir , who will follow COPE flowcharts.

Duties and Responsibilities of the LTS’s Editors

(http://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf)

1. The editors should evaluate submitted manuscripts to determine if they fall within the scope of the journal. Additionally, the editors should recommend expert reviewers based on their integrated recognition of specialized reviewers.
2. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for deciding whether to accept or reject submitted manuscripts for the journal. This decision takes into consideration several factors, such as the judgment of the editorial board members, the validation of the work in question, its significance to researchers and readers, as well as any feedback from reviewers. Furthermore, the decision must also comply with legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism, which are currently in force. The Editor-in-Chief works closely with other editors and reviewers to ensure that all submissions are fairly evaluated.
3. The editors ought to uphold the anonymity of both reviewers and authors.
4. The editors should disclose any potential conflicts of interest and make efforts to avoid them. If such circumstances arise, they are expected to delegate the handling of the manuscript to another member of the editorial board.
5. The editors, particularly the Editor-in-Chief, should demonstrate a willingness to investigate cases of plagiarism and fraudulent data. When ethical concerns are raised about a submitted manuscript or published paper, the editors will take appropriate measures in response. Any reported incidents of unethical publishing behavior will be thoroughly examined, even if they come to light years after publication.
6. When dealing with cases of suspected misconduct, the Editor-in-Chief follows the COPE Flowcharts. If an investigation supports the ethical concern, the journal will publish a correction, retraction, expression of concern, or any other relevant note.
7. The editors must not share any information about submitted manuscripts with anyone until they are published, as appropriate.
8. The Editor-in-Chief and members of the editorial board will not use unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted paper for their own research purposes without obtaining explicit written consent from the author.
9. Editors are expected to give fair consideration to all manuscripts submitted for publication, evaluating each on its own merits and without prejudice based on the author(s)' country, race, religion, nationality, sex, seniority or institutional affiliation. Decisions about editing and publishing are made solely based on the quality and relevance of the manuscript and are not influenced by external policies of governments or other agencies beyond the scope of this journal.
10. The Editor-in-Chief has complete authority over the editorial content of the journal as well as the timing of its publication. 

Duties and Responsibilities of the LTS’s Reviewers

(http://publicationethics.org/files/u7140/Peer%20review%20guidelines.pdf)

1. Reviewers are expected to provide insightful comments that assist the editors in making a decision about whether or not to publish the submitted manuscript.
2. Reviewers are expected to maintain the confidentiality of the manuscripts they are invited to review.
3. Reviewers are expected to disclose any conflicts of interest they have with the authors, companies, or institutions associated with the manuscripts they are invited to review. If a conflict of interest exists, reviewers should immediately notify the Editor-in-Chief, decline the invitation to review, and suggest alternative reviewers.
4. If reviewers feel unqualified to review an assigned manuscript or are unable to provide a timely review, they should inform the Editor-in-Chief and excuse themselves from the review process. If they know of any other expert reviewers, they may suggest them to the Editor-in-Chief through the dedicated email/comments section in the Reviewer Dashboard.
5. Reviewers are expected to maintain the confidentiality of the manuscripts they review and not discuss any information from the manuscript with anyone other than the Editor-in-Chief, unless they have obtained explicit permission to do so. This also applies to invited reviewers who decline the review invitation.
6. Reviewers are obligated to treat the manuscripts they receive for peer review as confidential and must not use any information obtained through this process for personal gain.
7. Reviewers are expected to provide technical, professional, and objective comments on the manuscripts they are invited to review.
8. Reviewers are expected to avoid personal biases in their comments and judgments, and express their views clearly with supporting arguments that assist the author in improving the manuscript.
9. Reviewers are expected to identify any relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. If a statement has been previously reported elsewhere, it should be accompanied by the appropriate citation.
10. Reviewers should also bring to the attention of the Editor-in-Chief any significant similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other publications of which they are personally aware.

Duties and Responsibilities of the LTS’s Authors

(http://publicationethics.org/files/International%20standards_authors_for%20website_11_Nov_2011.pdf)

1. Manuscripts must be submitted with the understanding that they have not been previously published (except as an abstract or part of a published lecture, review, or thesis) and are not currently under consideration by another journal.
2. Authors are expected to submit manuscripts with enough detail and references to enable others to replicate the work.
3. Authors may be requested to provide the original data from their study for editorial review and should be ready to make the data publicly available if feasible.
4. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all co-authors have approved the manuscript prior to submission.
5. Only individuals who meet the authorship criteria should be listed as authors in the manuscript, as they are expected to take public responsibility for the content.
6. Before submission, all authors are required to review the Guide for Authors.
7. Authors should disclose any conflicts of interest that might be perceived as influencing the results or their interpretation in the manuscript at the earliest stage possible. This can be done by uploading the Conflicts of Interest Form along with the manuscript submission.
8. The authors are responsible for ensuring that the submitted manuscript is a complete and original work, free from any form of plagiarism. All authors are advised to use plagiarism prevention software to check for similarities.
9. Authors are required to identify in their manuscript if their work involves chemicals, procedures, or equipment that have any inherent unusual hazards.
10. If applicable, authors should indicate in their manuscript that they obtained informed consent from human participants for experimentation and followed the privacy rights of these participants.
11. If the decision is 'Needs Revision,' authors are expected to respond systematically and promptly to the reviewers' comments, addressing each point, and revising their manuscript accordingly. The revised manuscript should then be submitted to the journal within the given deadline.
12. Authors are requested to clearly identify who financially supported the research and/or preparation of the manuscript and briefly describe the role of the founder/ sponsor in any part of the work at the end of their manuscript under “Acknowledgements” section.
13. It is a condition for submission of a manuscript that the authors permit editing of the paper for readability.
14. All authors agree to allow the corresponding author to serve as the correspondent with the Journal’s editorial office, to review the edited manuscript and proof.
15. Under open access license, authors retain ownership of the copyright for their content, but allow anyone to download, reuse, re-print, modify, distribute, and/or copy the content as long as the original authors and source are cited properly.
16. When author(s) discover(s) a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the Journal editor or publisher to retract or correct the manuscript. 
17. All authors must know that the submitted manuscripts under review with the LTS are subject to screening, using Plagiarism Prevention Software. Plagiarism is a serious violation of publication ethics and in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

Duties and Responsibilities of the LTS’s Publisher

(http://publicationethics.org/files/Code%20of%20conduct%20for%20publishers%20FINAL_1_0.pdf)

1. "Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (FUM)" is promising to ensure that the decision on manuscript submissions is only made based on professional judgment and will not be affected by any commercial interests.
2. FUM is committed to maintain the integrity of academic and research records.
3. FUM is monitoring the ethics by Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editors, Editorial Board Members, Reviewers, Authors, and Readers.
4. FUM, together with the Journal’s editors, shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of manuscripts where research misconduct has occurred, and under no circumstances encourage such misconduct or knowingly allow taking place.
5. FUM is always checking the plagiarism and fraudulent data issues involving in the submitted manuscripts and willing to publish corrections, clarifications and retractions involving its publications as and when needed.
6. FUM Business Model: FUM as the publisher supports the Journal for each published issue by paying a defined budget according to its published annual rank in the Portal of Scientific Journals of Iranian Ministry of Science, Research and Technology for costs including those pertaining to setup and maintenance of the publication infrastructure, routine operation of the Journal, processing of manuscripts through peer-reviews, editing, publishing, maintaining the scholarly record, and archiving.

Plagiarism Policy

Guidelines for Handling Complaints and Appeals

Journal of LTS welcomes genuine appeals to editor decisions or complaint about published content. However, you will need to provide strong evidence or new data/information in response to the editor’s and reviewers’ comments or author's published content. 

If an author or reader has concerns about their reviewed manuscript or another author's published paper, they may contact the Editor at jlts@um.ac.ir with a detailed written description of their concern and complaints, explaining clearly the basis for an appeal and compliant.

If you believe a correction (for a significant error) is necessary for your article or another author's article, contact the journal at jlts@um.ac.ir. Online versions of the article will be corrected (if possible), and an erratum will be published accordingly.