Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement
Middle Kingdom Studies ( MKS ) is an academic series published by Golden House Publications; one of the priorities of the advisory board is to publish high quality research. The integrity of the content published is an essential point and should be ensured during reviews and the edition processes. To that purpose, all the actors of an MKS, authors, reviewers, members of the advisory board, are expected to fully adhere to our policy regarding publication ethics and malpractice, and respect the following statements:
Authors
-Content-
MKS publications must be original and adhere to a high scientific (content) and technical (language, artwork, etc.) standard.
-Material studied-
When new material has been collected for the purposes of the study, the authors must ensure that all necessary permits have been obtained prior to collecting.
-Copyright-
Authors who publish with MKS accept the following conditions:
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication.
Authors should not post their submitted work online (e.g. in institutional repositories or on personal websites) prior to or during the submission process, as this may cause nomenclatural problems.
-Peer review-
MKS applies double-blind peer reviews. Authors can draw our attention to potential conflicts of interest by indicating the name of “opposed reviewers” during submission. Authors are required to explain (in detail) why they do not want this person to be invited. However, the MKS editor should decide for himself who he wants to invite, and cannot guarantee that “opposed reviewers” will not be invited.
-Plagiarism, text recycling and smallest publishable units-
Authors are expected to contribute to their research field by publishing original and relevant results and data. The following elements are considered essential for an ethical publication: data integrity; sound presentation of methodologies, sources and techniques used; reproducibility of results; acknowledgement of contributors to data collection and research; acknowledgements of funding agencies and/or previous institutions where (part of) the work was carried out.
As a consequence, authors must cite appropriate and relevant literature in support of the results presented in their manuscript. Authors who already published papers on the same topic are expected to include citation of these papers when relevant, but at the same time to avoid excessive and inappropriate self-citation.
Plagiarism is unacceptable; any suspicion of plagiarism will be investigated by the editorial team.
Self-plagiarism (also known as text recycling) should be avoided as much as possible; however, when text duplication from previous works is necessary, it is then reported transparently and these previous works are fully cited in the publication itself.
Reviewers
-The MKS review process-
EJT applies double-blind peer review, which means that reviewers remain anonymous by default. However, if reviewers want their names to be communicated to the author, MKS will allow this.
-Responsibilities of reviewers-
Reviewers are expected to objectively evaluate papers and inform MKS editors of any potential conflict of interest.
Confidentiality of the manuscripts they are reviewing should be maintained.
Potential reviewers who decline to review a paper are encouraged to state the reason why.
Editors
-Publishing policy-
Golden House Publications that publish MKS share the following principles:
Dissemination of original research, as well as the ability to use and reuse data as freely as possible, is the key to innovation and further advancement of science.
Publishing is part of the research process, and institutions should be able to preserve their in-house publishing expertise.
Scholarly publications should be made accessible to all.
-Editorial decision-
At the end of the review process, the editor-in-chief makes the final decision of acceptance or rejection, based on the reviewers' reports and the recommendation of the topical editor in charge of the review process.
If there is any conflict of interest between an editor and an author, the editor in question will not be involved in the review and the decision processes.
-Respect of reviewer anonymity-
The “Editorial Manager” system, which is used for manuscript submission in MKS , will automatically anonymize the reviewers' comments to authors. Reviewers can also send attached files (review report, commented manuscript) that can be communicated to the author; in this case the version sent to the author is also automatically anonymized (the author of the comments cannot be identified). However, reviewers should not enter their names or initials in the file name or inside the document, if they wish to remain anonymous.
-Privacy statement-
The names, affiliations and email addresses entered in our journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.
The editor
