Ethical Policy

Ethical Policy of the Al-Qawārīr

Al-Qawārīr is committed to the highest ethical standards.  In order to ensure high-quality academic research, the following principles are followed:

The Editorial Board of the journal is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published on the basis of their blind peer-review reports. The Editorial Board is guided by the policies of the journal and constrained by legal requirements related to libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. Members of the Editorial Board confer and refer to reviewers’ recommendations in making any decision. An editor, a member of the Editorial Board or a reviewer must evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual contents without regard to race, gender, political philosophy, citizenship, or religious beliefs of the authors.

The Editors of the journal must limit themselves to the intellectual contents and evaluate manuscripts exclusively on the basis of their academic merits. However, they have the right to exclude any material that breaks legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism.  The editors are also responsible for ensuring the confidentiality of the submitted works until they are published, except in the case of suspicion of multiple submissions.  In case, it is decided not to publish a material, the manuscript should not be used for any other purpose without express written consent of the author.  The editor of a submitted manuscript has no stake in the authorship. Editors should take reasonable responsive measures when ethical complaints are made about any submitted manuscript or published paper.

The Reviewers of Al-Qawārīr assist the editors in taking the decision of publishing submitted manuscripts. The reviews must be objective, comprehensive, and accurate. Observations supported with evidences should be clearly formulated, so that the authors may use them for improving the papers. If a referee feels unqualified to review any specific work or is afraid that he/she will not be able to complete the review within the prescribed period should inform the editor and excuse him/her from the task. The reviewers are supposed to treat the manuscript(s) received for peer-reviewing as confidential and must not use the information obtained from them for personal advantage. Neither should they accept reviews of the manuscript(s) in which they have conflicts of interest with the author(s) of the paper(s).

The Authors of the manuscripts submitted to Al-Qawārīr should ensure that submissions are entirely their own original work.  When the authors use other materials and sources they should be appropriately cited. They should present an objective discussion of the research work as well as sufficient details and references to enable others to assess and evaluate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable. Any attempt of plagiarism would outright lead to the rejection of the submitted manuscript. Plagiarism, in all its forms, constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is strongly condemned. Authors must not submit the same work or essentially the same research simultaneously to multiple journals.