The Editorial Board of Literature of the Americas commits to the internationally accepted principles of publication ethics stated in the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and takes into account the valuable experience of reputable international journals and publishers.
To ensure a high quality of academic publications, each member of the Editorial Board, publishers, authors, reviewers and institutions involved in the publishing process shall adhere to the ethical norms established by international academic community and take any reasonable steps to prevent their violations.
1. Main Principles
The Editorial Board of the journal Literature of the Americas in implementing its activities relies on the Law “On Mass Media” of the Russian Federation of 27 December 1991 № 2124-1, the Charter of A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IWL RAS), the Charter of the Editorial Board of the journal Literature of the Americas.
A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IWL RAS) as a Founder and publisher of the journal Literature of the Americas assumes obligations to control all stages of the editorial and publishing process, is responsible for the publication of original works and facilitates the adherence to ethical standards on behalf of the Editorial Board, the reviewers, and the authors.
2. Ethical Standards for the Editorial Board
The Editorial Board of the Literature of the Americas commits to the following internationally accepted ethical principles:
- The Editorial Board makes a decision which of the submitted essays should be published based on the results of examination of the essay’s compliance with the journal’s requirements, the results of the peer review, and the discussion at the Editorial Board’s meeting. The final decision about the essay’s acceptance or rejection shall be made by the journal’s Editor-in-chief.
- The members of the Editorial Board and the International Council are required to maintain neutrality and objectivity in relation to all the members of the editorial and publishing process.
- The Editor-in-chief ensures compliance with all the ethical standards outlined in this document.
- The Editorial Board shall not accept any essay with signs of libel, slander, plagiarism, and/or copyright violation.
- The Editorial Board evaluates the submitted articles regardless of sex, nationality, country of origin, citizenship, occupation, place of work, and place of residence of the author as well as of his or her political, philosophical, religious, etc. views.
- The Editorial Board complying with the principles of the double “blind” peer reviewing and confidentiality, shall not disclose any information about either the author or the reviewer.
- The Editorial Board ensures that the rejected materials shall not be used in another study by the members of the Editorial Board without the author’s written agreement.
- The Editorial Board shall consider claims of unethical behavior of the authors of submitted manuscripts or already published articles and take reasonable steps in respect of such claims. If the arguments of the claims are confirmed, the Editorial Board has the right to reject the submitted manuscript and to cease further cooperation with the author. In cases of reasonable complaints concerning the already published articles, the Editorial Board shall publish an appropriate rebuttal and take other necessary measures.
- The Editorial Board aims to achieve high quality of publications and, if necessary, is obliged to publish corrections and explanations.
3. Ethical standards for the authors of publications
The Editorial Board of the journal Literature of the Americas implies that every author submitting the manuscript to the journal, agrees with the following ethical standards:
- Submitting materials to the journal Literature of the Americas authors confirm their authorship by the fact of submission. In case of co-authorship, one of them is entitled to submit the essay; all co-authors should be mentioned in full and with all necessary reliable information that is applicable.
- The author submits the research article to the journal to review and publish it. If the author of the article used other works or includes excerpts from others works (citations) in the article, such use must be properly executed by specifying the original source in the references. Plagiarism in any form is unethical and unacceptable.
- Authors are responsible for all the factual material they provide in their submissions.
- The author ensures that the submitted material is an original work not published previously either in print or on open access Internet websites, and is not submitted to any other journal.
- Manipulation of citation in any form (e.g. inappropriate or abundant citations from the works of the supervisor, boss, and colleagues, including self-citation) is not allowed.
- Authors undertake to correct the manuscript’s defects pointed out by the Editorial Board or the Editorial Department.
- Authors must meet the journal’s requirements when submitting the article.
- All the sources of financial support (scholarships, state programs, projects, etc.) should be disclosed and indicated in the essay in obligatory order.
- In case the author discovers substantial errors or inaccuracies in the essay in the process of its peer review or after its publication, he or she should immediately notify the Editorial Board on the subject.
- In case of serious copyright violation and violation of authorship criteria, the submitted manuscript will be rejected and all further collaboration with the author may terminate.
4. Ethical standards for reviewers
The Editorial Board of the journal Literature of the Americas implies that every reviewer collaborating with the journal on a voluntary basis, takes on responsibilities to adhere to the following ethical standards:
- Manuscript submitted for review should be treated as a confidential document not to be transmitted for reading or discussion to third parties who are not entitled to read or discuss it by the Editorial Board of the journal Literature of the Americas.
- Supervisor (consultant) of the manuscript’s author shall not peer review the manuscript.
- The reviewer should peer review the manuscript objectively, providing with substantial argumentation for his or her view, make objective and relevant comments and suggestions aimed at improving the level of the submitted article. Personal criticism is not valid.
- The reviewer must not use the materials in an unpublished manuscript for his or her own personal scopes.
- The reviewer should point at substantial similarity or overlap between the peer reviewed manuscript and any other work as well as at the absence of references to premises, conclusions or arguments previously published in other works of this or other authors.
- The reviewer who has not, in his or her opinion, enough qualification for evaluating the manuscript or cannot be objective, for example in case of conflicts of interests with the author or institution, should report this to the Editor-in-chief and ask him to exclude him or her from peer reviewing this manuscript.
- The review is strictly confidential. The names of the reviewer and the author, their affiliation and position shall not be disclosed.