COPE PUBLICATION ETHICS AND MALPRACTICE STATEMENT

Detailed information on the rules of publication ethics are available on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) website, www.publicationethics.org.

Responsibilities and rights of authors, editors, reviewers and the publisher are detailed in the Copyright and Related Rights Act, dated 4 February 1994 (Journal of Laws 2019, item 1231, consolidated text, as amended) and the Press Law dated 26 January 1984 (Journal of Laws 2018, item 1914, consolidated text, as amended).

Responsibilities of authors of “Napis” [“Inscription”]

1. Authors are responsible for the content of the published texts and the reliability of the information used, as well as for any infringement of personal interests of third parties.
2. Articles sent to the Editorial Office must be original texts. Works which display plagiarism (appropriating someone else’s work or a part thereof through distributing it under one’s one name, including attributing creative elements of another person’s text to one’s own work, without providing information on the author and the source of the quotation), self-plagiarism (duplicating one’s own work in a way which leads to a false belief that the text, or part thereof, is being published for the first time, without making changes to the text and without providing its original publication information), as well as co-written texts where co-authors are not indicated, or works produced as a result of unreliable practices, such as ghost-writing (works created by a person who agrees for their text to be published under another person’s name), or guest authorship (naming co-authors whose contribution to the publication was minimal or nil), are excluded from publication.
3. Authors certify the originality of a text through an appropriate statement (a template is available on the periodical’s website), thus confirming that it has not previously been published elsewhere, or been concurrently submitted to another publisher, and that it is solely the author’s own work, which does not carry any features of a derivative text (such as reworking or adaptation), and which does not infringe the copyrights of any third parties.
4. Authors give consent for the publication of their work in Open Access for non-commercial academic purposes on the journal’s website, as well as in scholarly repositories and full-text databases, with which the journal is registered. The rules of Open Access are specified in the Open Access policy document of the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences, available on the Institute’s website.
5. Granting a non-exclusive licence for the publication of their article, the author has the right to the subsequent use of their text. The Editorial Office of the journal only asks that they be informed prior to publication, and that information on the first publication of the text be included in the reprint.
6. Articles should be in line with the profile of the journal and should be prepared according to the technical instructions which can be found on the periodical’s website (Publishing Manual: Guidelines for Authors; Submission Guidelines).
7. Each article is subject to a review process (according to the rule of double blind peer review), which is carried out by two independent experts in a given field. Once a new issue of the journal is published, the general list of reviewers is published on the periodical’s website.
   Upon receiving a positive review, authors are obliged to familiarise themselves with the experts’ corrections and to make the appropriate amendments or additions – in the case of a difference of opinion regarding the validity of suggested amendments, authors should give reasons for their point of view.
   Texts which receive two negative reviews do not qualify for publication, and their authors receive a substantive justification of the decision to reject the article. In the case where a text receives one positive and one negative review, it is forwarded to a third reviewer, whose opinion on whether to accept or reject the article is the decisive one.
8. If a submitted article is a result of research financed entirely or in part by research programmes, or academic institutions or societies, the author is obliged to convey this information in a footnote (in line with the rule on transparent financing).
9. The journal does not charge any fees for the publication of articles, nor does it offer any remuneration to authors.
10. In line with copyright laws, authors are obliged to obtain permission from the authors, other owners of economic copyrights, or inheritors of the iconographic and other source materials utilised in the article, to use these sources.
11. If an article is a result of collaborative work of two or more authors, all co-authors are obliged to specify, in percentage, the amount of creative input (concept, method, acquiring and processing data, formulating conclusions) that they contributed to the joint work (preparation of the article).
12. In case of making any modifications to the notes on the authorship of a collaborative work, or one created through combining two separate pieces, the authors are obliged to submit a written application to the Editorial Office, before the publication of the final version of the article (addition, removal or reordering of the author’s names or a change to their affiliation), containing a justification of the suggested changes and a written confirmation by all co-authors of their approval of these modifications.

Responsibilities of editors of “Napis” [“Inscription”]

1. The editorial team is responsible for the efficient organisation of each stage of the publication process: an initial evaluation of a submitted article, an assessment by the editorial committee (the Scientific Council and members of the editorial team), handing the text over for independent review, stylistic and technical editing, typesetting and page layout, as well as proofreading.
2. The Editorial Office establishes the regulations and procedures of the publication process, ensures that they are complied with, provides relevant information to authors and reviewers through the regularly updated website and personal e-mail correspondence (handled as confidential documentation), acting in compliance with the legal regulations and the conditions stipulated in the GDPR – Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of the European Union of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC.
3. The Editorial Office is responsible for avoiding any conflict of interest in relation to the received texts – that is, any situation in which certain relationships (professional, personal, or other) could have an influence on the evaluation of the article or the decision made with respect to its publication.
4. The initial evaluation of a text is carried out impartially by the editorial team, in accordance with the following criteria: the consistency of the subject matter of the submitted article with the profile of the journal, originality of the text (examined using anti-plagiarism software) and the substantive value of the article.
5. The editorial committee (the Scientific Council and the journal’s editorial team), through discussion, makes the decision on forwarding the texts initially approved for publication for external review. It also decides on whether the article is to be published in the nearest issue or in one of the subsequent issues of the journal, and on rejecting articles, which do not meet the formal (e.g., topic not compatible with the profile of the journal, standard not appropriate for a scholarly text) or substantive requirements of the journal.
6. The Editorial Office establishes a consistent set of criteria for evaluating articles (see: Reviewer Form) and requires reviewers to comply with the regulations on reviewing ethics and avoiding any conflicts of interest. Professional relations, direct personal relations, kinship, affinity, or close academic cooperation with the author of the text being reviewed in the last two years prior to the submission of the article, are considered conflicts of interest.
7. The Editorial Office guards the observance of the rules of publication ethics. In case of suspected dishonest practice or a breach of regulations, the Editorial Office proceeds according to the COPE procedures, documenting encountered cases of infringement of the rules of ethics and undertaking appropriate actions, including: publishing a corrigendum, suspending the publication of the article, and notifying the institution with which the author affiliates their text.
8. Any changes made during the editing process cannot distort the original thought of the author, and the sole aim of this process is to ensure factual, stylistic and structural correctness of the article, as well as clarity of the message.
9. Applications and draft versions are not made available online at present. An article is only passed on for publication once a written consent for the publication of the text in its final form is obtained from the author.
10. In case of submitted material being rejected from publication, the Editorial Office does not make use of the material in any way without first receiving a written consent from the author.
11. The publisher declares their readiness to publish any necessary clarifications, corrections and apologies on the website of the journal.
12. The publisher endeavours to prevent the process of infringement of the laws of intellectual property and ethical norms of publication through any kind of business influences (marketing, promotion, sales).

Responsibility of the reviewers of “Napis” [“Inscription”]

1. An expert, who undertakes a written review to approve or reject an article from publication, confirms that they possess suitable expertise in the relevant field of study, and that they are prepared to complete the task in a timely manner (so as not to delay the publishing process).
2. The reviewer confirms that there is no conflict of interest by submitting a signed declaration, in line with the COPE regulations, available on the periodical’s website.
3. A completed review must be in accordance with the following criteria: impartiality of the evaluation, a fair argument, and in the case of necessary additions, providing reference to the relevant studies and sources.
4. The reviewer is responsible for not using the materials received from the Editorial Office in any way, treating them in line with the rule of confidentiality.

Responsibility of the publisher of “Napis” [“Inscription”]

1. All textual and graphic materials published in the periodical (both in electronic and paper format) are protected by the effective legal regulations, including copyright, unfair competition laws and regulations of the Civil Code.
2. The materials are published on the Internet in open access: free of charge and without technical restrictions; users can access the materials online or download them as PDF files in line with the regulations on permitted usage and on the condition of identifying the authors of the works and citing the sources.

If the editorial team or Scientific Council detect or are reported misconduct by either party, a commission is appointed consisting of representatives of the Scientific Council, the Editorial Board and the publisher, which will initiate an investigation. At the same time it will notify of the action taken by commission the authorities the institution to which the operator is subject.