Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement
By submitting a manuscript to Universal Journal of Accounting and Finance, as an author you agree to comply with the following Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement.
Duties / Responsibilities of Authors
1. All manuscripts must be the original work of authors and not plagiarism. A zero tolerance approach will be taken to plagiarized manuscripts.
2. Authorship of a manuscript should be limited to authors who have made significant contributions.
3. Authors must properly and accurately acknowledge the work of others.
4. Authors should disclose any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript and acknowledge individuals or organizations that have provided financial support for research.
5. Authors may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with manuscripts for editorial review, and should prepare to provide public access to such data if possible.
6. All manuscripts must be previously unpublished, and not under consideration for publication elsewhere.
Duties / Responsibilities of Editor in Chief and Editorial Board Members
1. Editor in Chief or the assigned editorial board members from time to time are responsible for making decisions on size and content of the manuscripts submitted to the journal.
2. The journal utilizes a double blind peer review process. The Editor in Chief and members of the Editorial board ensure the integrity of the publication review process by not revealing either the identity of authors of manuscripts to the reviewers, or the identity of reviewers to authors.
3. The members of the Editorial Board receive all manuscripts for review in confidence and do not disclose any information about submitted manuscripts to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, other external referees sought from time to time and the publisher.
4. Any of editorial board members must not use materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript (published or unpublished) for their own research without the author's written authorization.
5. Editors shall conduct proper and fair investigation into ethical complaints.
Responsibility of Reviewers
1. Reviewers keep all information regarding papers confidential and treat them as privileged information.
2. Reviewers conduct their business of review objectively, with no personal criticism of the author.
3. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments that will constructively guide the editorial decision by the Editor in Chief or his or her nominee.
4. Reviewers should complete their reviews within the journal stipulated time frame.
5. Reviewers should not review 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.
Plagiarism Policy
Plagiarism, an action of taking other people's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work is considered academic dishonesty and a violation of journalistic ethics. Reusing portions of one's own published or copyrighted work in their new publications is self-plagiarism. A breach of copyright law or punishment by legal action may be involved in plagiarism.
All manuscripts submitted to our journals will be screened by a plagiarism detection software. Plagiarism tools, such as Cross Check / iThenticate, Turnitin etc. can be used for plagiarism detection.
To avoid plagiarism, authors confirm that:
1. I/We understand plagiarism is against the professional ethics;
2. Quoted verbatim texts are marked clearly with quotation marks;
3. Quotation sources are referenced clearly both in the text and in the Reference section;
4. Citing the source of equations, figures or tables properly with the permission from the original author or copyright holder;
5. Avoid self-plagiarism; do not copy portions of one's own published or copyrighted work without proper citation;
6. No copyrighted materials are used in the manuscript without permission;
7. The manuscript is free from plagiarism and has not been published previously;
8. I/We will take full responsibility for the opinion expressed in the paper and settling in all disputes arising from using any copyrighted materials in the manuscript without proper permission.
The author will be required to clarify regarding the plagiarized manuscript within one week if it is found to be suspected of plagiarism during any stages even after publication. Without a reasonable and timely explanation, the manuscript will be automatically rejected or removed from the system and any manuscripts submitted by the same author will not be accepted.