Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement
Authors submitting articles to American Religion affirm that manuscript contents are original.
The following duties outlined for editors, authors, and reviewers are based on the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE) guidelines, which are in turn based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Code of Conduct for Journal Editors.
Duties of Editor
Publication Decisions: Based on the external reviews, the editor can accept, reject, or request revisions of a manuscript. Revised manuscripts may or may not go out to peer reviewers again; this decision resides with the editors and will be communicated to the author at the time of the initial recommendation.
Review of Manuscripts: Editors will evaluate each manuscript for originality, importance, and clarity. Following this “desk review,” the manuscript may be sent out for singly anonymous peer review. Upon receipt of peer review reports, the editors will determine whether to accept, reject, or request revisions for the manuscript. This decision will be shared with the author.
Fair Review: The editors will ensure that each manuscript received by American Religion is reviewed for its intellectual content without regard to sex, gender, race, religion, citizenship, or ability of the authors. Any peer review report that indicates any such bias will be discarded in its entirety and not used in the evaluation process.
Confidentiality: The editors will ensure that peer reviewer identity is kept confidential.
Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: The editors of American Religion will not use unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript for their own research without written consent of the author.
Duties of Authors
Reporting Standards: Authors should present an accurate account of their original research as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Manuscripts will follow the submission guidelines of the journal.
Originality: Authors must ensure that they have written entirely original work.
Multiple, Redundant, or Concurrent Publications: Authors should not submit the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently. Similarly, authors should not publish redundant manuscripts or manuscripts describing the same research in more than one journal. American Religion reserves the right to remove an article from its publication queue in the event the author has done so.
Acknowledgement of Sources: Authors must acknowledge all sources used in the research and cite publications that have been influential in the research work. Significant plagiarism will result in a retraction of the article.
Authorship of the Paper: Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to conception, design, or interpretation of the research, as well as the writing of the article. All who have made significant contribution must be listed as co-authors. Authors also ensure that all the authors have seen and agreed to the submitted version of the manuscript and their inclusion of names as co-authors.
Fundamental Errors in Published Works: If at any point of time, the author(s) discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in submitted manuscript, then the error or inaccuracy must be reported to the editor.
Duties of Reviewers
Confidentiality: Information regarding manuscripts submitted by authors should be kept confidential and be treated as privileged information.
Acknowledgement of Sources: Manuscript reviewers must ensure that authors have acknowledged all sources of data used in the research. Any kind of similarity or overlap between the manuscripts under consideration or with any other published paper of which reviewer has personal knowledge should be brought to the editor’s attention.
Standards of Objectivity: Reviewers should express their judgments of the manuscript clearly with supporting arguments. Editors recognize that objectivity is an impossible stance (no reader is fully objective), and so reviewers are encouraged to approach reviews with collegiality and constructive critique.
Promptness: In the event that a reviewer feels it is not possible for him/her to complete review of manuscript within stipulated time then this information must be communicated to the editor, so that the manuscript could be sent to another reviewer.
