Publishing Ethics

Ethical Rules for Publication in Colloquia Comparativa Litterarum

(updated as of December 2025)

Colloquia Comparativa Litterarum has adopted and upholds the ethical standards and norms established and formulated by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) available on their website https://publicationethics.org/ that include the Core Practices https://publicationethics.org/about/what-we-do/our-story/history-code-conduct.

The integrity, and the professional and responsible attitude to one’s duties are paramount to all participants in the publication process. The submitted original research papers are subjected to anonymous reviewing by two academics who have expertise in the field of the manuscript. They judge impartially the significance and the scholarly  value of the article, and they fill in their Reviewer Cards conscientiously, with due argumentation, and if need be, criticise and give recommendations for rewrites.

Obligations of the Editors and the Reviewers

● The Editorial  Board is responsible for academic articles and book reviews published in the Journal, and provides an opportunity for publication of corrections and apologies, if necessary. The editors stick to a policy based on objectivity, transparency and academic non-bias, and pursue no commercial objectives.

● Editors aim to avoid potential conflicts of interest by requiring from the authors, the reviewers and the members of the Editorial Board to raise alert if they find any conflict of interest. The papers’ selection reflects the Journal’s scholarly areas of interest, the quality of their academic content, the contribution to the examined subject matter and the opinion of the anonymous reviewers. The texts for the Book Review Section do not undergo anonymous evaluation, as stated in the About the Journal Section.

● Editors provide quality assessment of the submitted papers through a double-blind peer review process conducted by two reviewers who are external to the author’s affiliation. The principles of the reviewing have been described in the Paper Reviewing Section. The Editorial Board engages highly qualified international experts and strictly adheres to confidentiality protocols throughout the evaluation.

● Editors ought to guarantee that the reviews are objective, up-to-date, whereas reviewers ought to follow the rules of polite attitude. Reviewers judge the academic qualities of the submitted papers. No discriminatory attitude or statements are allowed based on ethnicity, nationality, faith, political or sexual orientation. If a reviewer is unable to respect the deadlines or the Journal’s norms, they ought to inform a member of the Editorial Board that they won’t be able to take part in the reviewing process.

● Editors maintain correspondence with the authors and the reviewers in order to guarantee the rigorous process of reviewing, copyediting and proofreading of the submitted papers. In the event of proven negligence or deviation from the ethical rules on the part of an author, the article is rejected. In the event of proven technical errors or breach of the ethical norms after the publication of a paper, the Journal shall publish information about corrections, apologies, precisions or a stance on behalf of the Editorial Board in one of the following issues of the Journal.  

● Editors are in charge of observing the principles of academic integrity. The submissions are considered confidential, and the author’s and reviewers’ identity are of confidential nature, so as not to breach of the principle of anonymity in the reviewing process. The editors ought to make sure that the submitted papers conform to the ethical standards for academic research and that they meet the standards for research integrity and scholarly best practices.

● The StrikePlagiarism.com plugin software which is part of the online educational platform of Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” (https://elearn.uni-sofia.bg/)  is being used to check the originality and to detect plagiarism. Authors are sent a Statement to sign in which they declare that the submitted paper represents an original text by them that has not been published prior to that, does not contain incorrect data, and has no elements of plagiarism. All sources ought to be diligently quoted in accordance with the technical parameters stated in the Guidelines to Authors Section.

Obligations of the Authors

● Authors are responsible for the originality, veracity and methodology of their own research, as well as for the observation of the ethical norms. Their work should neither be previously published, nor offered for reviewing elsewhere.  The methods are required to be presented clearly and in a straightforward manner, so that their findings could be verified by other researchers too.

● Authors ought to respect the publication guidelines and ought to be aware that non-conformity to the latter might lead to the rejection of their paper.

● Authors must cite sources accurately and must not falsify, plagiarise, or manipulate data. They ought to cooperate in correcting errors, if such are found, even during the process of reviewing or after publication.

● In order to guarantee the originality of their papers, authors sign a statement. They are individually or collectively (in the case of co-authors) responsible for the submitted papers, their layout, authorship and first publication.

● Authors are bound to state the sources of the funding for their research, and to inform editors of possible conflicts of interest.

● Authors do not pay fees for the publication and receive no remuneration for their papers.

● During the preparation of the papers for publication authors ought to cooperate with the editors, respect the comments and the recommendations given by the reviewers, and to respect the deadline for the corrections. They should read carefully the corrected and formatted texts provided by the editors prior to the approval for publication.

● Authors must obtain written permission from the respective copyright holders for the use of images, figures and other materials owned by third parties.