Editorial Policies

CJGS expects all published articles to contain clear and accurate attribution of authorship. Typically, authorship is confined to those who have made a significant contribution to the design and execution of the work described. It is the responsibility of the author to ensure that all authors that contributed to the work are fairly acknowledged and that the published author list accurately reflects individual contributions. The author's signature and ranking should be determined by all authors before submission. In principle, there will be no change after submission. If any change is necessary, the author's certificate and the written statement about the change of signature signed by all authors should be presented. Where authorship disputes arise, CJGS editorial team follows the COPE guidelines.

The author should meet the following four requirements:

• Participate in thesis selection and design or data analysis and interpretation.
• Draft or revise the critical theory or other main content of the paper.
• Verify and revise the paper according to the editorial suggestions, answer the academic questions, and finally approve to publish the paper.
• Responsible for integrity issues in all aspects of research work. Participation in obtaining funding, collecting materials, and general management of research groups is not listed as the author.

Group authorship please refer to the unit under the title of the article, and list the name of the organizer at the end of the article. If it is necessary to indicate members of the study group, collaboration group and expert group, list the name and unit of the member at the end of the article. The author's name and contact information should be indicated on the first page of the paper.

All authors are responsible for the accuracy of the manuscript, including all statistical calculations and drug doses.

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all authors and collaborators have seen, approved and are fully conversant with the contents of the manuscript at the first submission.

Requests to change the authorship (such as to include or exclude an author, change an author’s name or contribution) must be accompanied by a letter signed by all authors to show they concur with the change. New authors must also confirm that they fully comply with the journal’s authorship requirements. Requests for addition or removal of authors as a result of authorship disputes (after acceptance) are honored after formal notification by the institute or independent body and/or when there is agreement between all authors. Changes to the authorship will not be allowed once the manuscript has been accepted for publication.

CJGS permit (or even encourage) acknowledgement of contributions to a research project that do not merit authorship. The ICMJE guidelines state: ‘All others who contributed to the work who are not authors should be named in the Acknowledgments, and what they did should be described’. All those who are listed in this way should be aware of it.

The corresponding author is solely responsible for communicating with the journal and with managing communication between co-authors. It is this author's responsibility to inform all co-authors of any matters arising and to ensure such matters are dealt with promptly. Before submission, the corresponding author ensures that all authors are included in the author list, its order agreed upon by all authors, and that all are aware that the manuscript was submitted. After acceptance for publication, proofs are e-mailed to this corresponding author who should circulate the proof to all co-authors and coordinate corrections among them. The corresponding author is responsible for the accuracy of all content in the proof, in particular that names of co-authors are present and correctly spelled, and that addresses and affiliations are current.

Material submitted must not be discussed with the media. If a paper is particularly newsworthy, the press release will be sent to our new media editor in advance of publication with an embargo that forbids any coverage of the manuscript, or the findings of the manuscript, until the time and date clearly stated. Authors whose papers are scheduled for publication may also arrange their own publicity (for instance through their institution’s press offices), but they must strictly adhere to our press embargo and are advised to coordinate their own publicity with our new media editor.

Editors, authors and reviewers are required to keep confidential all details of the editorial and peer review process on submitted manuscripts. Unless otherwise declared as a part of open peer review, the peer review process is confidential and conducted anonymously. All details about submitted manuscripts are kept confidential and no comments are issued to outside parties or organizations about manuscripts under consideration or if they are rejected. Editors are restricted to making public comments on a published article’s content and their evaluation.

Upon accepting an invitation to evaluate a manuscript, reviewers must keep the manuscript and associated data confidential, and not redistribute them without the journal’s permission. If a reviewer asks a colleague to assist in assessing a manuscript, confidentiality must be ensured and their names must be provided to the journal with the final report.

We deplore any attempt by authors to confront reviewers or try to determine their identities. Reviewers should be aware that it is our policy to keep their names confidential and that we do our utmost to ensure this confidentiality. We cannot, however, guarantee to maintain this confidentiality in the face of a successful legal action to disclose identity.

Regardless of whether a submitted manuscript is eventually published, correspondence with the journal, referees’ reports, and other confidential material must not be published, disclosed, or otherwise publicized without prior written consent.

In the interests of transparency and to help readers form their own judgments of potential bias, authors must declare whether or not there are any competing financial interests in relation to the work described. The corresponding author is responsible for submitting a competing financial interest’s statement on behalf of all authors of the paper. This statement must be included on the title page of the manuscript, as well as within the article before the References section listed under 'Competing Interests'.

In cases where the authors declare a competing financial interest, a statement to that effect is published as part of the article. If no such conflict exists, the statement will simply read that the authors have nothing to disclose.

For the purposes of this statement, competing interests are defined as those of a financial nature that, through their potential influence on behavior or content, or from perception of such potential influences, could undermine the objectivity, integrity or perceived value of a publication. They can include any of the following:

• Funding: Research support (including salaries, equipment, supplies, reimbursement for attending symposia, and other expenses) by organizations that may gain or lose financially through this publication. The role of the funding body in the design of the study, collection and analysis of data and decision to publish should be stated.
• Employment: Recent (while engaged in the research project), present or anticipated employment by any organization that may gain or lose financially through this publication. This includes positions on an advisory board, board of directors, or other type of management relationship.
• Personal financial interests: Stocks or shares in companies that may gain or lose financially through publication; consultation fees or other forms of remuneration from organizations that may gain or lose financially.
• Patents: Holding, or currently applying for, patents, relating to the content of a manuscript; receiving reimbursement, fees, funding, or salary from an organization that holds or has applied for patents relating to the content of the manuscript.

The statement included in the submission must contain an explicit and unambiguous description of any potential competing interests, or lack thereof, for any of the authors as it relates to the subject of the report.

CJGS will follow the COPE guidelines outlining how to deal with cases of suspected misconduct. As part of the investigation, the journal may opt to do one or more of the following:

• suspend review or publication of a paper until the issue has been investigated and resolved;
• request additional information from the author, including original data or images or ethics committee or IRB approval;
• make inquiries of other titles believed to be affected;
• forward concerns to the author’s employer or person responsible for research governance at the author’s institution.

Plagiarism has been traditionally defined as “the taking of words, images, ideas, etc. from an author and presenting them as one’s own “(American Association of University Professors, September/October, 1989). The original COPE guidelines on good publication practice (published in 1999) noted that ‘plagiarism ranges from the unreferenced use of others’ published ideas … to submission under “new” authorship of a complete paper, sometimes in a different language.’ Plagiarism includes the unattributed copying of another person’s data/findings, resubmission of an entire publication under another author’s name, verbatim copying of words of original material in the absence of any citation to the source material, or close copying (not quite verbatim, but changed only slightly from the original) of significant sections from another work(etc.).

Authors should ensure that the submissions are original works. If the tables or images used in the author's manuscript have been previously published, the author must correctly cite the original literature or obtain written permission from the copyright owner to reproduce the material in print and electronic format and submit it with the manuscript. The original source should be referenced in the table title or images footnote. Editors will scan each submitted manuscript with the help of Academic Misconduct Literature Check System of Science and Technology Periodicals (AMLC) which developed by China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) to verify the originality of submitted manuscripts.

If there's any plagiarism in the manuscript, it will be rejected and the authors will be blacklisted.

Falsification is the practice of altering research data with the intention of giving a false impression. This includes, but is not limited to, manipulating images, removing outliers or “inconvenient” results, or changing, adding or omitting data points. Fabrication is the practice of inventing data or results and recording and/or reporting them in the research record. Data falsification and fabrication call into question the integrity and credibility of data and the data record, and as such, they are among the most serious issues in scientific ethics.

Some manipulation of images is allowed to improve them for readability. Proper technical manipulation includes adjusting the contrast and/or brightness or colour balance if it is applied to the complete digital image (not parts of the image). The author should notify the Editor in the cover letter of any technical manipulation. Improper technical manipulation refers to obscuring, enhancing, deleting and/or introducing new elements into an image.

If there is suspicion of misconduct, the journal will carry out an investigation following COPE guidelines. Following an investigation, if the allegation raises valid concerns, the author will be contacted and given an opportunity to address the issue. If misconduct is established beyond reasonable doubt, this may result in the Editor implementing one of the following measures:

• If the article is still under consideration, it may be rejected and returned to the author.
• If the article has already been published online, depending on the nature and severity of the infraction, either an erratum will be published alongside the article or, in severe cases, complete retraction of the article will occur. The reason for the erratum or retraction must be given.
• In either case, the author’s institution or funding agency may be informed.

In cases where co-authors disagree about a correction or retraction, the editors will take advice from independent peer-reviewers and impose the appropriate measure, noting the dissenting author(s) in the text of the published version.

To provide open access, CJGS has an open access fee (also known as an article publishing charge, APC) which needs to be paid by the authors or by their research funder or institution. Accepted manuscripts should pay 800-1000 CNY (Chinese Yuan) per page.

References
1. Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals:
http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/.
2. CODE OF CONDUCT AND BEST PRACTICE GUIDELINES FOR JOURNAL EDITORS:
https://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors.pdf.



Updated on June 9, 2022