Corrections, Retractions and Misconduct

INJECT (Interdisciplinary Journal of Communication) follows the COPE flowcharts and the COPE Retraction Guidelines.

1. Allegations of research misconduct

Research misconduct includes fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, unauthorised authorship, undisclosed conflicts of interest, duplicate or redundant publication, citation or peer-review manipulation, and undisclosed or prohibited use of AI. Anyone may raise a concern by writing to the editor, with evidence. The journal handles every allegation confidentially and in these steps:

  1. Initial assessment of the evidence by the Editor-in-Chief.
  2. Clarification: the authors are asked to respond.
  3. Investigation, where needed with the authors' institution and independent experts.
  4. Decision by the Editor-in-Chief together with the publisher.
  5. Corrective action (below), documented and communicated to all parties.

2. Corrective actions

  • Correction (erratum/corrigendum): when an error does not make the main findings or conclusions unreliable.
  • Retraction: when there is misconduct or a serious error that makes the data, findings or conclusions unreliable. A retracted article is not deleted: its title is marked "[Retracted]", the PDF is watermarked, and a retraction notice states the reason and who decided it.
  • Withdrawal: a manuscript that has not yet been published may be withdrawn.
  • Expression of concern: while an investigation is ongoing.

Every correction and retraction notice is published openly, linked to the original article, and updated in the DOI metadata at Crossref and with the indexing services.

3. Post-publication discussion

Readers may comment on or critique a published article by writing to the editor. Substantive comments are reviewed by the editor and may be published as a Letter to the Editor or Comment together with the authors' reply, linked to the original article. Comments must be scholarly, respectful and free of personal attacks.