Editorial Process
Pre-Review
All manuscripts submitted to this journal undergo a selection and assessment process by the Editorial Board members. The journal applies this process as the preliminary selection to determine whether the manuscripts have conformed to the journal's submission guidelines, focus and scope and whether they are of excellent academic quality.
The language check also becomes essential to our screening at this stage. Authors must ensure that the journal editors and reviewers fully understand the academic content of their paper. Authors must ensure that the manuscript submitted to this journal has been proofread.
Please note that the Editorial Board will reject the manuscript submitted written in other than English.
Screening for Plagiarism
Plagiarism and self-plagiarism are prohibited. Each author is responsible for ensuring that the manuscript submitted to this journal is original and plagiarism free. It is our routine procedure to run all submissions through plagiarism detection software. The result of manuscript screening should be 25% of the maximum similarity. Also, the Editorial Board has the right to decline the submission when it is found that the manuscript is detected with plagiarism.
Plagiarism includes:
(a) the word-for-word plagiarism (the author uses the words of other authors (exactly) without mentioning the source);
(b) plagiarism over the source (the author uses the idea of others without giving enough recognition (without mentioning the source expressly); and
(c) plagiarism of authorship (the author is acknowledged as the author of the paperwork of others).
Desk Review
Manuscripts that have conformed to such mentioned criteria, and if they are judged suitable for this publication, will be forwarded to the desk review.
This step is optional. Typically, for submissions that undergo the desk review stage, the Editorial Board will provide common feedback to ensure submissions have conformed to the journal's standard to ease the peer-reviewer reviewing the manuscript. If authors do not meet these conditions, they will get feedback and have an opportunity to revise their manuscript according to the criteria. However, there is also the possibility that the Editorial Board will directly reject the manuscript.
Peer Review
The review process applies the double-blind peer review method, in which neither authors nor reviewers know each other’s identities. When the manuscript has passed the desk review stage, editors will deliver a manuscript to two reviewers who are experts in the field of the submitted manuscript. The task of reviewers is to assess originality, clarity of presentation, and contribution to the legal knowledge. Typically, reviewers will complete the review process within three weeks. Manuscripts that did not successfully pass the desk review process will not proceed to this stage and will be rejected.
Reviewers' Decision
The reviewers will provide the following recommendations:
1. Accepted (the manuscript is acceptable for publication);
2. Accepted with minor revisions (the manuscript is acceptable for publication after it undergoes a revision in response to the reviewers’ concerns);
3. Accepted with major revisions (substantive inadequacies in the manuscript, such as data analysis, the main theory used, and rewriting paragraphs, need to be revised); or
4. Rejected (the manuscript is not acceptable for publication, or the given reviews relate to fundamental issues).
The final decision of manuscript acceptance is solely decided by the Editorial Board by taking into account reviewers' comments. However, the Editorial Board cannot decide unilaterally without reviewers' recommendations.
Revision
Once the manuscript has been received with notations of minor or major revisions, it will be returned to the author with a review summary form. For manuscripts accepted with significant revisions, authors are allotted three weeks to revise. Whereas for manuscripts accepted with minor revisions, one week is allotted for revision. When returning the revised manuscript, the author is required to fill in and attach the review summary form.
Final Decision
At this stage, the Editorial Board will re-evaluate the manuscript to ensure that the author has revised it in response to the reviewers’ concerns. In this final decision, the manuscript may still be rejected if the author did not seriously conduct necessary revisions.
Proofreading
Once the manuscript has been deemed acceptable by the Editorial Board, it will undergo a proofreading process to maintain linguistic quality.
Competing Interest
After the paper submission is accepted and scheduled for publication, the corresponding author will be asked to attach the declaration of no conflict of interest.
Publication Confirmation
At this stage, in a certain condition, the final layout of the manuscript will be resent to the author to ensure that the content follows the author’s writing. At this stage, the author may revise any typographical error found in the final manuscript. Once confirmation from the author is given, the Editorial Secretary will process the manuscript for online publication on the website and a print publication.
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