ELR Publication Ethics
Transparency where possible. Confidentiality where necessary. Accountability throughout.
Publication ethics is not treated as a formal checklist detached from scholarly practice. It is part of the responsibility shared by authors, reviewers, editors, and the journal in maintaining a reliable academic record.
Publication Ethics
Explorations in Linguistic Review (ELR) is committed to maintaining a scholarly record that is accurate, transparent, and academically responsible. Authors, reviewers, and editors are expected to act in ways that protect the integrity of both the research process and the publication process.
Ethical questions are considered in relation to the circumstances of the individual case. Where concerns arise, ELR may request clarification, supporting documentation, research materials, or other information reasonably necessary to reach an informed editorial determination.
Authorship and Contribution
Authorship should reflect a genuine scholarly contribution to the work. All individuals listed as authors should have made a substantial intellectual contribution and should approve the submitted or published version for which they are identified as responsible.
Individuals should not be included as authors solely because of status, seniority, supervision, institutional position, funding responsibility, or other considerations that do not amount to a substantive scholarly contribution.
Contributors whose assistance does not justify authorship may be acknowledged where appropriate. Authors are responsible for resolving questions of authorship before publication and for informing the journal promptly of any material authorship dispute or requested change.
Originality, Attribution, and Plagiarism
Authors must appropriately acknowledge the words, analyses, data, examples, ideas, figures, and other intellectual contributions of others. Direct quotation, close paraphrase, translated material, and reused content should be identified and attributed in accordance with normal scholarly practice.
Plagiarism, fabricated attribution, intentional misrepresentation of sources, or presentation of another scholar's work as one's own is incompatible with publication in ELR.
Authors should also identify substantial reuse of their own previously published material where such reuse could affect the originality or publication status of the submitted manuscript.
Working Papers, Preprints, and Prior Circulation
ELR recognises that theoretical research frequently develops through working papers, conference papers, presentations, preprints, research notes, dissertations, theses, and other forms of scholarly circulation before journal publication.
ELR approach to developing research
Prior scholarly circulation does not automatically make a submission ineligible for consideration.
Authors should, however, disclose relevant earlier versions and make clear where necessary how the submitted work relates to, develops, reorganises, or extends material that has circulated previously.
A submission must not simultaneously be under consideration as the same formal journal article by another publication unless the relevant editors have expressly agreed otherwise.
Where substantial portions of a manuscript have previously appeared in a formally published work, authors must disclose that fact and ensure that any necessary permissions, attribution, and substantive scholarly development requirements are satisfied.
Research Data, Examples, and Materials
Authors are responsible for the accuracy and appropriate representation of linguistic examples, corpora, experimental results, archival materials, historical sources, transcriptions, annotations, and other forms of evidence on which their arguments depend.
Data sources, corpora, editions, databases, and other research materials should be cited or described with sufficient clarity for readers to understand the evidential basis of the research.
ELR supports transparency and responsible sharing of research materials where this is legally, ethically, and practically possible. The journal does not assume that all linguistic data can or should be made openly available. Restrictions arising from participant privacy, community agreements, archival conditions, cultural sensitivity, copyright, or other legitimate considerations should be respected and, where relevant, explained.
Human Participants, Consent, and Privacy
Research involving human participants should comply with the applicable ethical, institutional, and legal requirements governing the research where it was conducted.
Where ethical approval, informed consent, or another form of formal authorisation is required, authors should obtain it and provide an appropriate statement in the manuscript when relevant.
Personally identifying information should not be disclosed without an appropriate scholarly and ethical basis. Particular care should be taken when working with vulnerable participants, small speaker communities, sensitive sociolinguistic information, recordings, or data whose publication could make individuals identifiable.
Competing Interests and Disclosures
Authors, reviewers, and editors should disclose relationships or interests that could reasonably be perceived as influencing the presentation, assessment, or editorial handling of scholarly work.
Relevant interests may be financial, professional, institutional, personal, academic, or otherwise connected to the subject matter, authors, reviewers, or organisations involved.
The existence of a competing interest does not necessarily prevent publication or participation in the editorial process. The purpose of disclosure is to allow the journal to determine whether additional transparency, reassignment, recusal, or another measure is appropriate.
AI-Assisted Tools
Artificial intelligence systems cannot be listed as authors because they cannot assume scholarly responsibility, approve publication, respond to questions concerning research integrity, or accept accountability for the published work.
Authors remain responsible for all material submitted to ELR, including the accuracy of arguments, quotations, references, linguistic examples, translations, analyses, code, summaries, and other content that may have been produced or modified with the assistance of an AI-based system.
Where generative or other AI-assisted tools have been used in a way that materially contributes to the preparation, analysis, interpretation, or presentation of the scholarly content, authors should disclose the nature of that use with sufficient clarity for readers and editors to understand its role.
Peer-Review and Editorial Confidentiality
Unpublished manuscripts, reviewer reports, identities protected by the review model, editorial assessments, and related correspondence are confidential scholarly materials.
Reviewers should use manuscript content solely for the purpose of conducting the requested review and should not appropriate unpublished ideas, analyses, data, or materials for their own use.
Editors should restrict access to confidential editorial information to those who require it for the legitimate management of the manuscript or for the investigation of a serious ethical or legal concern.
Research and Publication Misconduct
Potential misconduct may include plagiarism, fabrication or falsification of research material, inappropriate manipulation of data, misrepresentation of authorship, undisclosed duplicate publication, serious failure to disclose relevant interests, or other conduct that materially undermines the reliability of the scholarly record.
When a concern is raised, ELR will seek to distinguish between honest error, reasonable scholarly disagreement, poor practice, and intentional or serious misconduct.
Depending on the circumstances, the journal may pause editorial processing, seek an explanation from the relevant parties, request supporting evidence, obtain additional specialist advice, decline a manuscript, correct the published record, retract material, or take another proportionate editorial action.
Corrections, Retractions, and Post-Publication Concerns
The scholarly record should be corrected when a material error or integrity concern becomes known after publication.
The appropriate response will depend on the seriousness and effect of the issue. Possible measures include a correction, amendment, editorial notice, retraction, or another clearly documented post-publication action.
Wherever technically practicable, ELR will preserve the relationship between the original publication and any subsequent notice so that the history of the scholarly record remains understandable to readers.
Reporting Ethical Concerns
Authors, reviewers, readers, and other members of the scholarly community may raise a good-faith concern regarding publication ethics, authorship, research integrity, disclosure, confidentiality, or the accuracy of material published by ELR.
Concerns should identify the publication or manuscript involved and provide sufficient information for the journal to understand the issue. Where supporting documentation is available, it may be included.
Ethics and publication-integrity correspondence should be sent to: