Publication Ethics Code - Philological Class

Philological Class is a peer reviewed scholarly journal published primarily for the benefit of scholarly research. The Editorial Board of the Journal has no political, ideological, confessional, or any other preferences. All participators of the process of scholarly communication (authors, reviewers, editors and the Editorial Board members) are to follow the ethical norms described below, which have been worked out on the basis of internationally recognized norms and standards of scientific ethics and the best practices of the leading publishers of academic periodicals, and specifically the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the Declaration of the Association of Science Editors and Publishers (ASEP, Russia) “Ethical Principles of Scientific Publications”. The Editorial Board of the Journal acts in keeping with the legislation of the Russian Federation.

1. Ethics Code for authors

By submitting manuscripts for consideration to the journal Philological Class, authors confirm their authorship. In case of co-authorship, the manuscript can be submitted by one of the co-authors, provided the names and the necessary and reliable information about all other co-authors are attached.

An author is a person who has made a substantial contribution to the conduct of research. A substantial contribution can be made in the form of a concept development, collection of empirical material, procession and interpretation of the data obtained, or preparation of the text of a scholarly paper.

All authors should take part in the preparation and critical discussion of the text of the manuscript submitted to the Journal.

All manuscript authors should provide an agreement to publish the final text of the paper.

Co-authors bear full responsibility for all aspects of the study, and not only for those conducted by them personally.

A corresponding author is a person responsible for communication with the Editorial Board and the Editorial Council of the Journal in the process of submission, peer review and preparation for publication. The corresponding author is responsible for compliance with the Journal requirements related to text formatting and ethical norms, and should report about any conflict of interest that might arise. The corresponding author should respond to any request of the editor not only at all stages of the publication process but also after the publication of the paper to provide (if necessary) additional information and to respond to the readers’ critical remarks.

The colleagues who have made a certain contribution to the scholarly findings presented in the publication, but do not fully meet the authorship criteria (a substantial contribution to the study, preparation and critical analysis of the text, approval of the final text of the manuscript, agreement to bear responsibility for all aspects of the study), cannot be regarded co-authors, but should be mentioned in the section “Acknowledgements”.

2. Policy in relation to plagiarism and other forms of unauthorized quoting

Any forms of plagiarism are unacceptable, including self-plagiarism. Simultaneous submission of one and the same manuscript to several publications is also improper.

The Editorial Board of Philological Class tests the originality of submitted manuscripts by the “Antiplagiat” system (https://www.antiplagiat.ru/). Manuscripts in English are tested with the help of Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.ru/ ).

Any form of plagiarism is unethical and unacceptable behavior of the author.

The main forms of plagiarism and unauthorized quoting are considered to be the following:

use of materials published elsewhere without citing the source;
use of graphs, tables, photos, schemes and other illustrative material without citing the source;
use of verbal or illustrative materials published elsewhere without a previous written permission of the copyright holder, in case the authors prohibit using their material without such a permission;
inaccurate citing a source (incomplete bibliographic description) preventing its identification;
citing a secondary source without proper notification of this fact, which entails errors in identification of the original source;
absence of in-text citations of the source included in the reference list;
overquoting, justified neither by goals and tasks of the paper, nor by the publication genre.

If any kind of such misconduct is revealed at any stage of the editing process, the Editorial Board does not only have the right to reject the article but can also retract the one which has already been published.

3. Retraction policy of published papers

The materials published in the Journal may be retracted due to the following reasons:

evidence of publication of unreliable information as a result of intentional misconduct or honest error (miscalculation or finding contradictory information, etc.);
emergence of redundant publication;
discovery of an attempt to conceal the fact of a conflict of interest, which might have influenced the data interpretation or the recommendations about the application of research findings.

In such cases, the Editorial Board uses the procedure of retraction according to the COPE protocol.

The aim of retraction consists in correction of the published information and in letting the readers know about the publication containing unreliable information.

Retraction does not mean deleting the article from the Journal web site and bibliographical databases. The article stays in all these resources with a salient notification about the retraction and preservation of the DOI or any other persistent identifier. This is necessary, because the article might have been cited and used in other publications. A special notice is published on the Journal web site about the retraction of the article.

4. Policy in relation to conflict of interest

The trust of society in the outcomes of scientific activity, as well as the reliability of scientific information, depends, to a large extent, on the degree of openness with which the issues of conflict of interest emerging in the process of investigation, expertise and publication are solved.

A conflict of interest arises when issues of personal or financial nature influence, or may influence, the professional assessment of facts under investigation.

The Editorial Board of Philological Class strongly encourages all authors to report about the relationships with any industrial or financial organizations which might have influenced the interpretation of the outcomes obtained, or the recommendations made as a result of the study. This information should be presented in the subsection of the paper Conflict of Interest.

Reviewers should withdraw from making decisions if they have a conflict of interest as a result of competitive or any other relationships with an author, company or institution connected with the given study.

An editor should pass on their responsibility for making decisions about a manuscript (to a deputy editor-in-chief, member of the Editorial Board, etc.) if they have a conflict of interest as a result of competitive or any other relationships with an author, company or institution connected with the given study.

The manuscripts of the members of the Editorial Board and the Editorial Council submitted to the Journal for publication are examined upon general grounds.

Each action related to the processes of submission, expertise and accepting / rejecting of a manuscript should be examined in terms of a possible conflict of interest as a preventive measure. Any unresolved conflict of interest should be considered by a special committee made up of 2 representatives of the Editorial Board, unassociated with the conflicting parties, and 3 independent persons, who are not connected with the activity of the Journal in any way.

5. Responsibility of the parties of the publication process

5. 1 Ethics Code for Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board Members

Editor-in-Chief is responsible for what articles are going to be published in the journal Philological Class. Editor-in-Chief acts in accordance with the basic policies of the Journal and the existing legislation of the Russian Federation with reference to slander, copyright infringement and plagiarism.

Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board members are obliged to adhere to the following ethical principles:

to focus on the data reliability and high scholarly standards of the study presented in the paper submitted for consideration while making decisions about its publication;
to assess the intellectual content of the manuscript regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, origin, citizenship, social status or political preferences of the authors;
to protect confidential information and to prevent the use of the data or ideas presented in the manuscripts under consideration for private purposes;
to guarantee just, objective and timely scholarly expertise of manuscripts;
to protect the confidential information about the reviewers;
to guarantee confidentiality of the whole process of article review;
to ensure high quality and timeliness of review;
to be well aware that the Journal focuses on the benefit of scholarly research, but not on profit;
not to accept manuscripts for publication if there are reasons to believe that they contain plagiarism or unauthorized quoting;
to continue work on improving the standards of publication activity by implementing procedures for ensuring high quality of the materials published;
to keep on developing the database of reviewers;
to stimulate discussion on the journal pages and to be ready to consider well-reasoned criticism of a paper published in the Journal.

5.2 Ethics Code for reviewers

Reviewers carry out scholarly expertise of authored materials, due to which they should be impartial and adhere to the following ethical principles:

to consider the manuscripts submitted for review in a confidential document, which is prohibited for disclosure to, or discussion by a third party without a special permission of the Editorial Board of the Journal;
to provide an objective and judicious assessment of the findings of a study under consideration;
to express their own opinion abstaining from the personal criticism of an author;
to be aware of the prohibition to use the unpublished data in the text of the manuscript for private purposes;
to refuse from reviewing a manuscript in case the reviewer is not an expert in the given field of knowledge, or is aware that he or she would be unable to complete the process of review in time;
to refuse from reviewing a manuscript in case there is any form of conflict of interest.

5.3 Ethics Code for authors

Authors bear personal responsibility for the complete text of the manuscript and are obliged to abide by the following ethical principles:

to present reliable research results. Knowingly false, fraudulent or falsified allegations are treated as unethical behavior and are unacceptable;
to guarantee that the manuscript submitted for review is an independent and original investigation;
to guarantee that all persons who have made a substantial contribution to the study are named as co-authors;
to guarantee that all co-authors have been informed about the final text of the article, have approved it, and agree to submit it for publication;
to indicate the authorship and the primary source of all quotes with the help of correct bibliographic referencing;
to provide, if necessary, access to unprocessed data concerning the manuscript, both at the stage of review and after the article publication;
to refrain from submitting the manuscript for consideration by several publications simultaneously;
to avoid pejorative remarks which may reflect badly on the reputation of other researchers;
to name the sources of financial support correctly, should they have influence upon research outcomes, their interpretation and conclusions of the reviewers, or trigger off a conflict of interest;
to inform the Editor-in-Chief about the errors found in the manuscript at any stage of the publication process without delay;
to disclose a potential or real conflict of interest.

6. Data protection

Editors should abide by the legislation of the Russian Federation dealing with issues of confidentiality, and specifically Federal Law № 152-FZ “On Personal Data” of July 27, 2006 and Federal Law № 149-FZ “On Informational Technologies and the Protection of Information ” of July 27, 2006 with all amendment and additions to these acts. Nevertheless, irrespective of this legislation, they must always protect confidentiality of personal information received in the process of research or professional interaction. If necessary, editors have the right to ask for a written informed agreement to publish certain material from the persons who can recognize themselves, or might be recognized by others (for example, from reports about events or photos).

7. Access to the archive of articles in case of termination of publication activity of the journal

In case of termination of publication activity the journal's website will be available for users. Including the full archive of articles will remain open.

Regardless of the work of the Editorial Team and the journal's website, access to the archive is possible on the platform Elibrary.ru

Also, electronic and printed copies of the archive are kept by the Editorial Team and are always available upon request via E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

8. Relationships with the Founder

Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education «Ural State Pedagogical University» is the Founder of the Journal.

The relationships between the Editorial Team, the Editorial Board of Philological Class and its Founder are based on the principle of editorial independence.

The Editorial Board makes decisions about the publication of an article based solely on its quality and suitability for the Journal, without any interference on the part of the Founder. The position of the Founder cannot be regarded as a basis for interference in the responsibilities of the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board.