Publication Ethics

Ethical standards for publication exist to ensure high-quality scientific publications, public trust in scientific findings, and that people receive credit for their ideas. As of INQUEST Publishers conducts and aims to adhere to its Best Practice Guidelines.

Plagiarism

All journals published by Inquest Publishers are committed to publishing only original manuscripts, i.e., manuscript that has neither been published nor is under review anywhere in the global. Inquest Publishers Crosscheck uses its own developed plagiarism software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts globally. Manuscripts that are found to have been plagiarized from a manuscript by other authors, whether published or unpublished, will incur plagiarism sanctions.

Duplicate Submission

Manuscripts that are found to have been published, or to be under review anywhere, will incur duplicate submission/publication sanctions. If authors have used their own previously published work, or work that is currently under review, as the basis for a submitted manuscript, they are required to cite the previous work and indicate how their submitted manuscript offers novel contributions beyond those of the previous work.

Authors

Authors must declare all potential interests in a ‘Conflicts of interest’, which should explain why the interest may be a conflict. If there are none, the authors should state “The author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest regarding the publication of this paper.” Submitting authors are responsible for co-authors declaring their interests.

Authors must declare current or recent funding (including for article processing charges) and other payments, goods or services that might influence the work. All funding, whether a conflict or not, must be declared in the ‘Acknowledgments’.

The involvement of anyone other than the authors who 1) has an interest in the outcome of the work; 2) is affiliated to an organization with such an interest; or 3) was employed or paid by a funder, in the commissioning, conception, planning, design, conduct, or analysis of the work, the preparation or editing of the manuscript, or the decision to publish must be declared.

Declared conflicts of interest will be considered by the editor and reviewers and included in the published article.

Editors and Reviewers

Editors and reviewers should not be involved with a submission when they:

Have a recent publication or current submission with any author.
Share or recently shared an affiliation with any author.
Collaborate or recently collaborated with any author.
Have a close personal connection to any author.
Have a financial interest in the subject of the work.
Feel unable to be objective.

Inquest Publishers aims to avoid assigning submissions to editors, and inviting reviewers, who have a conflict; they should decline in any of the above situations and declare any conflicts to the journal.

Reviewers must declare their interests before assigning of a manuscript just by the given abstract, which will be considered by the editor.

Editors and reviewers must declare if they have previously discussed the manuscript with the authors.