Author Guidelines
1. Submitting the manuscript
All manuscripts must be submitted to the associate editor by e-mail at ciprian.sandu@fspac.ro two months in advance of the issue. So, for the January issue, the submission deadline is 1st of November, for the April number the submission deadline is 1st of February, for the July number the submission deadline is the 1st of May and for the October number the deadline is the 1st of August.
Submission of a paper implies that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere and further that it contains work not previously published elsewhere.
The manuscript must not have more than four authors. Once a manuscript is submitted the author/authors must wait the final outcome of the peer review process before submitting a new manuscript for evaluation.
When sending a manuscript, please send us two documents, one being only the title page and the name (and affiliation) of the author(s) and the second being the manuscript for reviewing without the author(s) identity.
2. Review process
Upon receiving the manuscript, the associate editor will check if the manuscript corresponds with the scope of the journal and if the submission rules are respected. Any submission failing to meet the submission requirements will be unsubmitted or desk rejected (please see bellow). The manuscript that passes the submission threshold will be assigned to the Editor-in-Chief. Desk rejection will be issued if the manuscript clearly fails one of the key areas of the evaluation as listed below in this section.
If the manuscript passes the editor’s initial screening, it will be assigned to at least two reviewers. Selected manuscripts will be subjected to a double-blind peer review, which means they will be reviewed on the basis of anonymity. Each reviewer will receive the anonymous manuscript together with a review document that will contain the identification data of the reviewer and his score for each part of the manuscript (abstract, introduction, literature review, methodology, analysis and conclusion). All the reviewers will be selected only based on their expertise in the topic of the subject discussed in the manuscript. The final decision is made by the editorial board which reserves the right to refuse any manuscript or, in cases when manuscripts are accepted, to add certain corrections or shorten them. Any changes affecting the substance of the text will, of course, only be made in agreement with the author. The review process takes between two and five months.
Desk Rejection
The desk rejection criteria follow the recommendation of the Publication Manual of the
American Psychological Association: A manuscript is usually rejected because the work (a) is outside the coverage domain of the journal; (b) contains flaws methodology, analysis, or interpretation; (c) is judged as making a limited contribution to the field, given the standards of the journal; (d) revels that the manuscript is used as a platform to promote any anti-social behavior. In this stage, also, the manuscript will be rejected if it is not original (please see the ethics section bellow).
Editorial Rejection
An editorial rejection might occur when the initial review of the manuscript reveals formatting flaws such as exceeding the prescribed page limits, flaws between the methodology and the results, major grammar and spelling errors and the inappropriate use of the academic rules concerning quotes, citations and the references section.
A manuscript that has been rejected by editorial board may not be revised and resubmitted without a specific invitation from the editor. If a manuscript is rejected on the basis of the peer-review, the editor explains why it was rejected and may provide feedback from the reviewers.
Authors are free to submit the rejected manuscript to another journal. Authors are welcome to use the reviewers’ and the editor’s feedback when revising their manuscript.
3. Text
Manuscripts should be no longer than 25 pages and they must be written in English (US spelling). Also, the manuscripts must be complete in all respects (including tables and figures). For further style requirements, read the “Point of style” section.
4. Title, subtitles and biography
The first page must contain the full title of the paper, the full name(s) of the author(s), academic or professional affiliations and complete addresses of all authors. In the case of multiple authors, every author should be displayed on a new line, followed by organizational details, separated by commas. The name and address of the author to whom correspondence may be sent should be indicated, including an e-mail address, telephone number and fax number.
The title of the paper should consist of eight words or less. Notes are not allowed in the title. Subtitles must be short and clearly defined.
5. Abstract and key words
A structured summary of no more than 200 words should be included, at the beginning of the paper. The summary (abstract) should describe the main subjects covered by the paper. The summary should be understandable to readers who have not read the rest of the paper. It should not contain any citations of other published work.
With the abstract should also be sent the article’s key words.
6. Ethics, scientific misconduct and malpractice
Integrity in research and publishing is of great importance for our center. We consider it an essential part of our ethical responsibilities as editors to be aware of and to meet these challenges and to develop strategies for coping with them.
Likewise, Conflict Studies Quarterly is committed to ethical standards in its own editorial policy. The editors of the journal do their best to ensure fair, unbiased, and transparent peer review processes and editorial decisions.
Any detected cases of misconduct, whether on the part of authors, reviewers or editors, will be vigorously pursued.
In order to help the authors avoid any type of misconduct, we will exemplify ethics breaches and scientific misconduct as follows:
Plagiarism – passing off another’s work or idea as your own
All manuscripts will be checked for plagiarism immediately after the submission. For this reason, the associate-editor will use anti-plagiarism software that will generate a similarity report. Depending on the severity of plagiarism, authors can be banned to submit other manuscripts for publication for a period ranging from 1 to 3 years. A severe plagiarism is considered to be a percentage higher than 10%. Minor plagiarism (under 10%), is handled by the editors case-by-case and the authors will be required to correct the text and to use proper citation.
Duplicate submission – submitting a paper simultaneously to more than one publication at a time
Conflict of interest – nondisclosure to the publication that you have a direct or indirect conflict that prevents you from being unbiased in your paper2
Authorship disputes – deliberately misrepresenting a scientist’s relationship to their work on a published paper
Salami slicing – the “slicing” of research that would form one meaningful paper into several different papers
Research fraud – which includes fabrication (making up research data); and falsification (manipulation of existing research data, tables, or images)
The editors of CSQ are responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. In evaluating the submitted manuscripts, the editors will limit themselves only to the intellectual content. The editors can choose to ignore any material that breaks legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editors must ensure the confidentiality of the submitted works until they are published, except in the case of suspicion of double submission. In case the editors decide not to publish a material, the manuscript should not be used for other purposes without the express written consent of the author.
The reviewers of CSQ assist the editors in taking the decision of publishing a submitted manuscript. The reviewers are bound to treat the manuscript received for peer reviewing as confidential, and must not use the information obtained through peer review for personal advantage. The reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.
The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works. When the authors use other materials, sources should be appropriately cited. Any attempt of plagiarism will be followed by the rejection of the submitted manuscript. Authors should not submit the same work or describe essentially the same research in more than one journal
7. Final submission and copyright issues
Once the manuscript has been accepted for publication, the author must provide a final version incorporating the referees’ comments.
Conflict Studies Quarterly is licensed through a Creative Commons License Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internațional . This means the following rights and obligations:
Rights
Authors can freely share their articles and redistribute them in any platform or format they choose. They can also adapt, change, or add on to the article for later use.
Obligations
Authors must give credit to the CSQ, provide the link that CSQ assigned to the article, and add a clear note if any adaptation is made after the article has been published in the journal. Authors may not use the article for commercial purposes.
The Conflict Studies Quarterly journal retain the copyright and full publishing rights.
8. Articles Processing Charges (APC)
Conflict Studies Quarterly is an open online publication so there are no review or publishing fees for the authors. Hard copied can be printed surcharge/issue or with subscription.