The Ethical Charter of the Judgment Quarterly
The Ethical Charter of the Judgment Quarterly, based on guidelines established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), outlines the duties and responsibilities for all parties involved in the ublication process of the journal, including the editor-in-chief, editorial board members, internal manager, copyeditor, and publisher. The responsibilities for these groups are as follows:
To ensure the journal's proper functioning and adherence to research ethics, the journal management (including the editor-in-chief, specialized editors, and editorial board members) is responsible for the following:
1.1 Legality in Decision-Making for Article Publication:
The journal management makes decisions regarding which articles are suitable for publication. The management group follows the journal's broad policies and the legal requirements set by the Ministry of Science’s relevant regulations, both current and future.
1.2 Impartiality:
The journal management will not approve any article for publication without a specialized review, as detailed in the following sections. The management group does not exercise any personal, subjective, or biased judgment in accepting or rejecting articles; all decisions are based on scientific and technical considerations.
1.3 Investigation of Suspicious Cases:
If any article in the journal is questioned regarding research methodology, findings, or validity, the journal management will initially contact the authors to request accurate responses to the issues raised. After completing the review, the management group will publish the results in the journal and, if necessary, issue a correction regarding previous content.
The journal is committed to examining all claims related to violations of authors' rights, ethical breaches in research, academic misconduct, and other relevant issues, adhering to all requirements in these areas.
Reviewing in the journal is conducted anonymously. No information leading to the identification of reviewers will be disclosed to the authors at any stage, even after the article is published.
Speed of Action:
To safeguard the authors' rights, reviewers are committed to responding to the referrals as quickly as possible. If they are unable to do so, they must inform the journal so that another reviewer can be assigned.
Confidentiality:
Reviewers must treat the articles they are given for evaluation as confidential and not disclose any information about their content to others.
Impartiality:
Reviews must be conducted impartially. To ensure this, reviewers should provide explanations and justifications for their opinions.
Accuracy in Citation:
Reviewers should ensure that any content in the article that is derived from other sources is accurately cited, and that the source is clearly identified. If copyrighted materials (such as tables, images, or extensive quotations) are used, authors must obtain explicit written consent from the copyright holder and acknowledge this in their article.
Duties of Authors
Authors, as the primary content providers for the journal, have significant responsibilities:
Originality of Content:
Authors must ensure that their submitted content is original and has not been published previously in any language, in any journal, either domestically or internationally. Since translated articles are not accepted, authors must ensure their work is original.
Authorship:
The submitter of the article must list only those who have made significant contributions to the writing of the article as authors. All individuals who have played such a role should be included as authors.
Compliance with Citation Standards:
Any use of other sources must be clearly specified with complete citation details. For materials with copyright (such as tables, images, or extensive quotations), authors must obtain and acknowledge written permission from the copyright holder.
Simultaneous Submissions:
Authors must not submit their articles to other journals before the final decision is made. Simultaneous submissions are considered a violation, and the journal will halt the review process if such issues arise and report the violation to the author's institution.
Conflict of Interest
If the authors have received financial support from a specific institution or organization for their research, they must disclose this in their article.
"This journal adheres to the ethical guidelines set by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and follows the laws against academic fraud and their executive regulations."
Plagiarism and Literary Theft
The Human Resources and Cultural Affairs Department of the Tehran General Directorate of Justice values original research and reputable scientific investigations. The department does not tolerate literary theft and thoroughly examines all articles submitted to its journals to ensure they are free from plagiarism. Given the prevalence of literary theft in academic work, the department employs all possible methods to combat this issue.
The Judgment Quarterly follows the definitions and guidelines of COPE. For comprehensive access to these guidelines and rules, please visit COPE's website.
This journal adheres to the following definition of plagiarism from the American Psychological Association's Publication Manual (6th edition):
Plagiarism: Using someone else's ideas, words, or entire work without proper citation and presenting it as one's own new idea or work produced by others.
The journal addresses plagiarism using similarity detection software:
Word-for-Word Copying: Copying text verbatim, in whole or in part, without quotation marks or citation.
Surface or Inadequate Paraphrasing: Taking ideas from the original source and changing the wording without altering the original author's style.
Plagiarism of Visual Content: Using diagrams, images, or tables, in whole or in part, without citation.
Unattributed Paraphrasing: Taking ideas from the original source and producing text in one's own words without proper citation.
The Judgment Quarterly considers any work that lacks citation or quotation, regardless of the source, as literary theft. This includes published or unpublished works, theses, speeches, self-authored works, PowerPoint presentations, and journal articles, among others.
The journal thoroughly reviews all submitted articles and addresses any literary theft at any stage of publication. Upon detecting plagiarism in newly submitted articles, the journal’s editorial committee will make a decision. If plagiarism is deemed an error, authors will be notified and given a chance to correct it. If intentional, the authors will be informed and blacklisted, and they will be banned from submitting to the journal for 5 years.
In rare cases where a published work is found to contain plagiarism, in addition to the aforementioned consequences, the work will be immediately removed from the journal, and this will be publicly announced on the publisher’s website.
The Judgment Quarterly uses similarity detection systems connected to extensive global databases to ensure the authenticity and credibility of submitted articles. The acceptable similarity percentage for the journal is up to 15%.