Publication Policy

Margalla Papers' publication policy follows the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC) Journals and Publications Guidelines. and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Guidelines on Good Publication Practice.

Editorial Policy

When a manuscript is submitted to Margalla Papers, it is assessed to see if it meets the criteria for submission (given as Guidelines for Authors). If it does, the editorial team selects potential well-reputed experts/ reviewers within the field of research to blind peer-review the manuscript and make recommendations for the author(s), if necessary.

Editorial Independence

Margalla Papers' core value of intellectual freedom and independent editorial decisions is based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Code of Conduct. The editorial decision-making process is not linked to any commercial interest. Any complaints about editorial decisions are dealt with strictly within the editorial structures of a publication.

Editorial Procedure

The submitted manuscripts are treated as per the following procedure:

Acknowledgment on receipt of the research paper from author(s).
A preliminary review by the editorial team (rejection or provisional acceptance) according to the scope and policy of the journal, format of the submitted manuscript, and assessment of originality and plagiarism.
Carrying out blind peer reviews by national and foreign reviewers.
Improvement/ revision (if necessary) by the author(s) as suggested by the reviewer(s).
Resubmit to the reviewer(s) if deemed necessary.
Selection for the publication or rejecting the manuscript as per the reviewers' recommendations.
Editorial process including final editing, formatting, processing and printing.
Publication of the journal.

Submission of Manuscript

Submission of any manuscript to Margalla Papers means that:

The author(s) work has not been published earlier in any other journal, book, or book chapter, be it printed or online (except in the form of an abstract or an academic thesis).
It is also not in any way under consideration for publication elsewhere.
The submitted manuscript has permission for publication from all the concerned author(s) and is approved by the responsible authorities where that work has been carried out.
If accepted in Margalla Papers, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in any language, without the publisher's prior consent. See the Copyright and Licensing webpage.

Authorship

According to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Guidelines, authorship refers to "the creator or originator of an idea or the individual(s) who develops and brings to fruition the product that disseminates intellectual or creative works (e.g., the author of a scholarly article)." The editorial team of Margalla Papers encourages that the contributions of all authors must be described and the corresponding author is responsible for providing the contributions of all authors at the time of submission. We expect that all authors will have reviewed, discussed, and agreed to their contributions before submission.