Publishing Ethics

Authorship

We follow the COPE authorship guidelines regarding any disputes over authorship. These issues may include:

• Ghost authorship – exclusion of a contributor from the list of authors.
• Gift/guest authorship – Inclusion of someone who hasn’t contributed to the work, or who has chosen not to be associated with the research.
• Disputes over the order of the authors and the level of contribution made by each author.

To be considered an author, someone need to have:

• Made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the obtaining/gathering, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;
• Contributed to drafting of the work or revised it critically for important intellectual content;
• Given consent of the version to be published;
• Agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

Obtaining a grant to complete the work does not constitute authorship. These people can be included in the acknowledgements.

If and when needed, any authors listed should be able to identify each co-author’s contribution and have full confidence in the integrity of their work.

Regarding authorship disputes, our aim is to try to reach reach an agreement between the parties.  If the authorship disputes can’t be resolved in such fashion, we may refer it to the authors’ institutions.

Citations

We discourage our authors to use excessive self-citations of their own previously published works. All citations in the work must be relevant, add value to the article, and should not be included just to increase the citation score of the author(s).

We disprove citation pushing. Including superfluous or irrelevant references to boost another author or authors citation record is unethical and where identified may result in removal of such work from our databases and banning of involved authors in accordance with the guidelines set out by the Committee on Publication Ethics.

We encourage our authors to cite the relevant scholarship published previously to strongly establish their arguments. Sometimes, peer-reviewers may also refer authors to work the reviewer believes can further develop and improve ideas in papers under review. This should not be conveyed in a coercive way and cannot be a condition of acceptance or without academic justification.

We value both author freedom and editorial independence. If you believe that you are pressured to include a particular reference in your work, please contact us on admin@tplondon.com.

Defamation/libel

All authors are required to provide proof of consent for studies about named organisations or people before submitting their work.

Our editors may request removal or change of the text, or reject the work, if unsubstantiated or emotive statements are made about organisations or people in a submission.

Although we encourage constructive criticism, malicious content is not allowed. Any defamatory and/or libellous statements may result in retraction of the work and /or withdrawal of the online version(s).

Plagiarism

All the work submitted must be your own work and expressed in your own words. We take plagiarism very seriously. There are various forms plagiarism can take and all are strictly not allowed.

Plagiarism could be in the form of an exact copy of another person’s work without acknowledgement, references or use of quotation marks; or it can be improper paraphrasing without appropriate attribution; or using a figure, table or paragraph without acknowledgement, references or the use of quotation marks. Authors are responsible to obtain the necessary permissions from the copyright holder. Similarly, recycling previous work without leading to different arguments or relating to new data is not allowed for our authors. Previously published work must be clearly referenced.

Plagiarism allegations are treated carefully and they may have serious effect on authors career. We listen to all parties (relevant to copyrights) involved in such allegations before we decide on a course of action. All such allegations are handled in accordance with the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) guidelines.

Similarly, we do not allow any other unethical behaviour including fabrication of data, image manipulation to mislead, and dual publications.

Conflicts of interest and grievances

Everybody involved in the publication process, authors, reviewers and editors alike has a duty to be vigilant and report possible conflicts of interest. When submitting work, authors must declare anything that may have influenced your work and/or could influence the review process or the publication of the work.

Such conflicts may arise from, for example, a financial or personal interest in the outcomes of the research, undisclosed support for the research, a prior relationship between author and editor.

When submitting work, a note providing the background to any financial support for the research from third parties and any other possible conflict of interest must be declared.

Similarly, if authors believe a concerned editor or reviewer might have a conflict of interest, the publisher should be informed. In addressing such issues, we will follow the COPE guidelines.

If your work has been declined and you believe there are grounds to appeal the decision, such as new evidence or a reviewer’s misunderstanding of your article, you may appeal such decision by writing to the Editor or the Publisher on admin@tplondon.com. We aim to consider such complaints and resolve within two months. This decisions are final and cannot be appealed.

Transnational Press London treats all misconduct fairly, objectively, and carefully. Ethical issues are resolved by collecting the full accounts within reason and involved parties are informed of the decision. We follow the Committee on Publication Ethics in determining the processes. We reserve the right to withdraw and rescind any acceptance should a case of ethical misconduct be discovered prior to publication.