The Pattimura Excellence Journal of Language and Culture (PEJLaC) is a peer-reviewed journal, available online and published twice a year. This statement clarifies the ethical behavior of all parties involved in the act of publishing an article in this journal, including the author, the chief editor, the Editorial Board, the peer-reviewer­­­­­ and the publisher (Language Studies Centre, Pattimura University, Ambon, Indonesia). This statement is based on COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.

PUBLICATION ETHICS

1. All submitted papers are subject to a strict peer-review process by reviewer/s that are experts in the area of the particular paper.
2. The review process is a blind peer review.
3. The factors that are taken into account in review are relevance, soundness, significance, originality, readability, and language.
4. The possible decisions include acceptance, acceptance with revisions, or rejection.
5. If authors are encouraged to revise and resubmit a submission, there is no guarantee that the revised submission will be accepted.
6. Rejected articles will not be re-reviewed.
7. The paper acceptance is constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism.
8. No research can be included in more than one publication. 

A statement of professional ethical codes is a statement of the ethical codes of all parties involved in the process of publication of this scientific journal (Editors, Peer-reviewers, and Authors). In general, the publication ethics of the Pattimura Excellence Journal of Language and Culture refers to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) about Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editor and Peraturan Kepala LIPI Nomor 5 Tahun 2014 about the Ethical Codes of Scientific Publication. Essentially, the code of ethics itself upholds three values of ethics in publications, namely:

1. Neutrality (free from conflicts of interest in public management),
2. Justice (giving the right of authorship to the beneficiary as the author), and
3. Honesty (free from duplication, fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism (DF2P) in the publication.

DUTIES OF EDITORS

Publication Decisions

The editor is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The editor 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 editor may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.

Complaints and Appeals

Pattimura Excellence Journal of Language and Culture will have a clear procedure for handling complaints against the journal, Editorial Staff, Editorial Board, or Publisher. The complaints will be clarified to a respected person with respect to the case of complaint. The scope of complaints includes anything related to the journal business process, i.e. editorial process, citation manipulation, unfair editor/reviewer, peer-review manipulation, etc. The complaint cases will be processed according to the COPE guideline.

Fair Play

An editor at any time shall evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Confidentiality

The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's own research without the express written consent of the author.

DUTIES OF REVIEWERS

Contribution to Editorial Decisions

Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author, peer reviewer may also assist the author in improving the paper.

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 editor and excuse himself 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.

Standards of Objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is considered 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 of observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor’s attention to any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal but relevant 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

The author’s reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the manuscript. 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.

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.

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.

Authorship of the Paper
Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution 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 on the manuscript 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 conflicts 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.

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.

Ethical Oversight

If the research work involves chemicals, humans, animals, procedures, or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the author must clearly identify these in the manuscript in order to obey the ethical conduct of research using animals and human subjects. If required, authors must provide legal ethical clearance from the association or legal organization.

If the research involves confidential data and of business/marketing practices, authors should clearly justify this matter whether the data or information will be hidden securely or not.

ALLEGATIONS OF RESEARCH MISCONDUCT

Research misconduct means fabrication, falsification, citation manipulation, or plagiarism in producing, performing, or reviewing research and writing the article by authors, or in reporting research results. When authors are found to have been involved with research misconduct or other serious irregularities involving articles that have been published in scientific journals, Editors have a responsibility to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the scientific record.

Pattimura Excellence Journal of Language and Culture carries a Comments and Criticism section, which provides a forum for expressing different viewpoints, comments, clarification, correction of misunderstanding, and reporting research misconduct regarding topics in published papers. Readers of the journal are earnestly invited to contribute their ideas to this forum.

In cases of suspected misconduct, the Editors and Editorial Board will use the best practices of COPE to assist them to resolve the complaint and address the misconduct fairly. This will include an investigation of the allegation by the Editors. A submitted manuscript that is found to contain such misconduct will be rejected. In cases where a published paper is found to contain such misconduct, a retraction can be published and will be linked to the original article.

WITHDRAWAL OF MANUSCRIPTS

General Policy of Article Withdrawal

It is a general principle of scholarly communication that the editor of a journal is solely and independently responsible for deciding which articles submitted to the journal shall be published. In making this decision, the editor is guided by policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements in force regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism.  An outcome of this principle is the importance of the scholarly archive as a permanent, historic record of the transactions of scholarship. Articles that have been published shall remain extant, exact, and unaltered as far as is possible. However, very occasionally circumstances may arise where an article is published that must later be retracted or even removed. Such actions must not be undertaken lightly and can only occur under exceptional circumstances. In addition, Author(s) (and/or their institution) will be punished from any kind of article withdrawal in the form of article submission ban (temporary up to permanent ban)

This policy has been designed to address these concerns and to take into account current best practices in the scholarly and library communities.  As standards evolve and change, we will revisit this issue and welcome the input of scholarly and library communities. We believe these issues require international standards. All of the Article Withdrawal Policies in Pattimura Excellence Journal of Language and Culture (including Withdrawal of Manuscripts, Article in Press, Article Retraction, Article Removal, and Article Replacement Policies) is adopted from Elsevier Article Withdrawal Policy.

Article Withdrawal by Author(s)
Author(s) are not allowed to withdraw an article that has been sent to Pattimura Excellence Journal of Language and Culture because the withdrawal of the article wastes the resources, time, and effort that the Editor and Peer-reviewers do in processing the article. If the author is still requesting the withdrawal of the article, the author will be punished in the form of a ban on the submission of a manuscript for (maximum) 8 numbers (4 volume or 4 years) for the manuscript withdrawal in the review process. However, it is highly unethical to withdraw the manuscript that has been sent from a journal because another journal has accepted it.

The withdrawal of the article after the manuscript has been accepted for publication is extremely unethical. The author will be given a punishment in the form of being banned on the submission of a manuscript for (maximum) 20 numbers (10 Volume or 10 years). Withdrawal of the manuscript in this policy includes the submission of the article revisions that exceed the time limit specified by the Editor and does not immediately notify the Editor and/or revise the manuscript. If the author did not revise the manuscript until the deadline without any confirmation, the Author can be banned for (maximum) 12 numbers (6 volume or 6 years).

Authors who make more than one manuscripts withdrawal can be banned permanently. This banning may also be applied to the author’s institution. The Pattimura Excellence Journal of Language and Culture Editorial Board can publicly announce through the Pattimura Excellence Journal of Language and Culture page and/or provide information to other journal editors or other publishers when Pattimura Excellence Journal of Language and Culture Editorial Board is performing the banning processes in these cases.

 ARTICLE RETRACTION

Infringements of professional ethical codes (such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data, or the like) is forbidden in Pattimura Excellence Journal of Language and Culture. Occasionally, a retraction will be used to correct errors in submission or publication. The retraction of an article by its authors or the editor under the advice of members of the scholarly community has long been an occasional feature of the learned world. Standards for dealing with retractions have been developed by a number of libraries and scholarly bodies, and this best practice is adopted for article retraction by Pattimura Excellence Journal of Language and Culture.

The editor will investigate deeply the infringements of professional ethical codes. The Pattimura Excellence Journal of Language and Culture Editorial Board will notify the author(s) about the alleged violation along with its proof and offer the options that can be executed by the Author(s). If the Editor is unable to contact the author within the prescribed period, the Editor will discuss with other Editor and Editorial Advisory Board about this problem.

The standard of article retraction in Pattimura Excellence Journal of Language and Culture are:

1. A statement (letter) of article retraction, entitled “Retracted: (article title)”, will be issued by the Pattimura Excellence Journal of Language and Culture Editorial Member in English.
2. The retraction letter of this article (along with evidence, comments, criticism, or a request from the member(s) of the scientific community) is placed on the previous page of the article with the same page number as the first page of the article and given the additional code “ed-1” for the first page of the letter and so on (e.g., 56-ed-1, 56-ed-2, etc.).
3. The original version of the article will be given a “Retracted” watermark or stamp and placed after the letter. This new PDF file is made to replace the original PDF file article.
4. The abstract of the article on the Pattimura Excellence Journal of Language and Culture website is replaced with a statement about the retracted of the article because it violates the ethical code and/or Pattimura Excellence Journal of Language and Culture policy while the keyword of the article is deleted.
5. The retraction letter of the article will also be published in Pattimura Excellence Journal of Language and Culture, Literature and Culture on the edition when the article and the letter issued as part of the Comments and Criticism section.

ARTICLE REMOVAL: LEGAL LIMITATIONS

In an extremely limited number of cases, it may be necessary to remove an article from the online database. This will only occur where the article is clearly defamatory or infringes others’ legal rights, or where the article is, or the Editor has good reason to expect it will be, the subject of a court order, or where the article if acted upon, might pose a serious health risk. In these circumstances, while the metadata (Title and Authors) will be retained, the text will be replaced with a screen indicating the article has been removed for legal reasons.

ARTICLE REPLACEMENT

In cases where the article, if acted upon, might pose a serious health risk, the authors of the original article may wish to retract the flawed original and replace it with a corrected version. In these circumstances, the procedures for retraction will be followed with the difference that the database retraction notice will publish a link to the corrected re-published article and a history of the document.

PLAGIARISM POLICY

Pattimura Excellence Journal of Language and Culture of Language Studies Centre, Pattimura University Ambon recognizes that plagiarism is not acceptable for all author and therefore establishes the following policy stating specific actions (penalties) when plagiarism is identified by Pattimura Excellence Journal of Language and Culture (we are using Plagiarism Checker X Pro 2019)  in an article that is submitted for publication.

“Plagiarism is copying another person’s text or ideas and passing the copied material as your own work. You must both delineate (i.e., separate and identity) the copied text from your text and give credit to (i.e., cite the source) the source of the copied text to avoid accusations of plagiarism.  Plagiarism is considered fraud and has potentially harsh consequences including loss of a job, loss of reputation, and the assignation of reduced or failing grade in a course."

This definition of plagiarism applies for copied text and ideas:

1. Regardless of the source of the copied text or idea.
2. Regardless of whether the author(s) of the text or idea which you have copied actually copied that text or idea from another source.
3. Regardless of whether or not the authorship of the text or idea which you copy is known
4. Regardless of the nature of your text (journal paper/article, web page, book chapter, paper submitted for a college course, etc) into which you copy the text or idea
5. Regardless of whether or not the author of the source of the copied material gives permission for the material to be copied; and
6. Regardless of whether you are or are not the author of the source of the copied text or idea (self-plagiarism).

When plagiarism is identified by the Plagiarism Checker  software,  the Editorial Board responsible for the review of this paper and will agree on measures according to the extent of plagiarism detected in the article in agreement with the following guidelines:

Minor Plagiarism

A small sentence or short paragraph of another manuscript is plagiarized without any significant data or idea taken from the other papers or publications.

Punishment: A warning is given to the authors and a request to change the manuscript and properly cite the original sources.

Intermediate Plagiarism

A significant data, paragraph, or sentence of an article is plagiarized without proper citation to the original source.

Punishment: The submitted article is automatically rejected.

Severe Plagiarism

A large portion of an article is plagiarized that involves many aspects such as reproducing original results (data, formulation, equation, law, statement, etc.), ideas, and methods presented in other publications.

Punishment: The paper is automatically rejected and the authors are forbidden to submit further articles to the journal.

We accept all terms and conditions of COPE about plagiarism and in case, any attempt of plagiarism is brought to our attention accompanied by convincing evidence, we act based on flowcharts and workflows determined in COPE. All submissions will be checked with Plagiarism Checker: new submission and after acceptance from the editorial boards