Publication Ethics

Relationships between authors, editors, and reviewers in our journal are based on academic benevolence, objectivity of ratings, and priority of scholarly quality.

Duties of Editor-In-Chief, Issue Editor, and Editorial Board

Publication decisions

The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for the final decision concerning which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published without regard to race, gender, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors. The Editor-in-Chief may be guided by the policies of the journal's Editorial Board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. The Issue Editor, reviewers, or members of the Editorial Board can assist in making this decision. 

Confidentiality

The Editor-in-Chief, Issue Editor, or Editorial Board must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, and other editorial advisers, as appropriate.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

The Editor-in-chief, Issue Editor, members of the Editorial Board, or reviewers must not use the unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript in their own research without the express written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Members of the Editorial Board should recuse themselves (i.e., should ask a co-editor, associate editor, or other member of the editorial board instead to review and consider) from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships, or connections with any of the authors or (possibly) institutions connected to the papers. Members of the Editorial Board should require all contributors to disclose relevant competing interests and publish corrections if competing interests are revealed after publication. If needed, other appropriate action should be taken, such as the publication of a retraction or expression of concern.

Involvement and cooperation in investigations

The Editor-in-Chief should take reasonably responsive measures when ethical complaints concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper are presented in conjunction with the publisher. Such measures will generally include delay of the publication until any doubt is clarified, contacting the author of the manuscript or paper, and giving due consideration of the respective complaint or claims made, but may also include further communications to the relevant institutions and research bodies, and if the complaint is upheld, the publication of a correction, retraction, expression of concern, or other note, as may be relevant. Every reported act of unethical publishing behavior must be looked into, even if it is discovered years after publication. 

Duties of Reviewers

Contribution to editorial decisions

Peer review assists the Editorial Board in making editorial decisions and, through the editorial communications with the author, may also assist the author in improving the paper. Peer review is essential to formal scholarly communication and lies at the heart of the scientific method.

Promptness

Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the Issue Editor and excuse himself or herself from the review process.

Confidentiality

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the Editor-in-Chief.

Standards of Objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments. 

Acknowledgment of Sources

Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the Editorial Board's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest

Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers. 

Duties of Authors

Reporting standards

Authors should present original research as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

Originality and Plagiarism

The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited or quoted. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

Multiple, Redundant, or Concurrent Publication

An author should not, in general, publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. As a rule, an author should not submit a previously published paper to another journal for consideration.

Acknowledgment of Sources

Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, must not be used without the explicit written permission of the author of the work involved in these services.

Authorship of the Paper

Authorship should be limited to those who have contributed significantly to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included in the paper and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed. Potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed at the earliest stage possible.

Fundamental errors in published works

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.

Issue Editor’s Checklist

The editor must check off the submission's compliance with all of the following items before sending it to the reviewers. Submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

The submission includes the text of the article (introduction, main text, and conclusion), keywords, abstract, reference list, and information about the author in the original language. Besides that, it includes an English translation of the abstract, keywords, reference list, and information about the author and the author’s affiliation. 

The submission file is in Microsoft Word document file format. 

The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points rather than at the end. 

The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author's Guidelines.

Editorial Procedures

What happens to the paper after submission?

Step 1: When an article is submitted, within three days, the Issue Editor checks the article against the Editorial Check-List and sends it to the Editorial Board or returns it to the author with recommendations. The author then needs to revise the article and resubmit it within two weeks.

Step 2: Members of the Editorial Board check the article according to the philosophy of the journal and the subject matter of the next issue and send their recommendations to the Editor-in-Chief (accept, reject, or suggest minor/major revisions) and suggest potential reviewers. The Editorial Board reaches all decisions by consensus or, in controversial cases, by a simple majority.

Step 3: The Editor-in-Chief makes a decision on reviewers, and the Issue Editor sends a request. When the answer is positive, the Issue Editor sends materials and sets the deadline. The author receives notice of the decision.

Step 4: Reviewers return their conclusion (approve, reject, or approve with minor/major revisions) and detailed recommendations within 30-40 days.

Step 5: The Editorial Board makes a decision about the article. The Issue Editor informs the author about the decision and sets the dates for revision: minor revision—7-10 days; major revisions—10-30 days. In case of major revisions, the Editorial Board selects one of its members to guide the author in the process of revision according to recommendations. All correspondence is copied to the Issue Editor.

Step 6: Approved articles are combined into a package, and the Issue Editor sends them to the Advisory Board, which may then veto any article within 1-14 days. The Editor-in-Chief organizes the issue and sends it to the Issue Editor. 

Step 7: The Issue Editor sends the package of English versions to the Сopy Editor and then to the layout. Russian/Ukrainian versions are sent to the layout and then to the proofreader. The technical assistant corrects the galleys and sends them to the Issue Editor and the Editor-in-Chief. 

Step 8: The Editor-in-Chief reads the issue and makes a decision to send it to print. The technical assistant submits the issue to the printer. 

Step 9: When the issue is printed, the technical assistant sends it to authors, member-schools, and subscribers. Electronic versions of articles, abstracts of articles, and the content of the current issue are posted on the journal's website. Access to electronic versions of articles is provided immediately after the publication of the printed version of the journal.

Plagiarism Policy

The Editorial Board considers the following to be the forms of plagiarism:

  • use (word-for-word citation) of any materials without indicating the source;
  • use of images, pictures, photographs, tables, diagrams, schemes, or any other forms of graphical information presentation without indicating the source;
  • use of images, pictures, photographs, tables, diagrams, schemes, or any other forms of graphical information presentation published in scientific and popular issues without approval of the copyright holder;
  • use of the materials without written permission, whose authors or copyright holders do not permit the use of their materials without their formal approval.

The Editorial Board considers the following to be the forms of incorrect borrowing:

  • absence of graphical highlighting of literal text citations when there are references to the source;
  • incorrect references (incomplete bibliographic description of the sources, which prevents their identification;
  • reference not to the first source of the borrowed text without a clear indication of this fact (mistake in primary source determination);
  • absence of references from the text to the sources listed in the bibliography of the article;
  • excessive citation (in case there are references to the sources and graphical highlighting of the cited text), the volume of which is not justified by the genre and aims of the article.

Theological Reflections does not encourage any form of plagiarism or duplicate submissions, and we strongly recommend that our authors check the article content before submitting it to our journal for publication. We request our Authors to use Plagiarism Checking software to check plagiarism before submission, although they are not completely reliable.

The journal mainly uses Plagiarism Checker by Grammarly software to detect and check plagiarism for all submitted articles before publishing them online. If the plagiarism is observed by editors, peer reviewers, or the editorial staff at any stage of the publication process, it could be rejected based on the extent of plagiarism present in the article, and it would be notified to the author.

Repository Policy

The Journal allows authors to post their submitted and accepted article versions in institutional repositories or on their websites and to post the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version after publication without embargo (but to post only on a non-profit server).

The published source must be acknowledged, and a link to the journal home page or articles' DOI must be set.

Archiving

PKP Preservation Network (PN)