Ethics and Policies for Journals
Duke University Press is committed to the highest standards of both critical scholarly review and professional publishing judgment.
Guiding Principles
Scholarly Excellence
By insisting on thorough peer review procedures in combination with careful editorial discernment, Duke University Press (DUP) ensures that only scholarship of the highest quality receives the imprimatur of Duke University.
COPE
Our policies and publishing practices are closely aligned with the core practices developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Professional Conduct
Editors, editorial board members, reviewers, and authors are all expected to communicate respectfully and professionally. Harassment, intimidation, and discrimination of any kind are unacceptable and may result in editorial removal, the retraction of a manuscript, or other appropriate action.
Author Responsibilities & Policies
Author Responsibilities
Originality and the Use of AI
Authors should submit only original work that properly cites or quotes the work of others. DUP will not accept work substantially written by generative AI. AI tools should not be used to generate insights, produce original research, or draw conclusions. Authors must disclose the use of generative AI in their work in a general statement at the beginning of their article (e.g., in an unnumbered note). It is not necessary to disclose the use of grammar or spelling tools, but authors should disclose the use of AI tools for other purposes, such as editing, formatting citations, data analysis, translations, and visualizations.
Authors accept full responsibility for the accuracy and integrity of their article’s content, including any portions proofread by AI.
Individual journals published by the Press may have more specific guidelines for the use of generative AI.
Authorship
Authorship is reserved for those who have made a significant intellectual contribution to the manuscript. This may include developing or executing the underlying research, or preparing the publication that conveys the research results. Anyone who has contributed to the work in these ways and to a substantial degree should be listed as a co-author. Others who have assisted with the work in helpful but less fundamental ways may be credited more appropriately in an article’s acknowledgments or notes. If the corresponding author has difficulty determining whether or not a contributor should be named as an author, they should consult their editor.
All authors are fully responsible for the entirety of their work. Authors must guarantee that their submitted work contains no matter that can be construed as libelous or as infringing in any way on the copyright of another party. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all appropriate authors have been named; that all authors have seen and approved the final version of the article; and that all authors have agreed to its submission for publication.
Conflicts of Interest
Authors should disclose in their manuscript all funding sources, the role of funders in their research, and any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that may be perceived as having influenced their research or its published results. All named authors are expected to provide these disclosures regardless of the nature or scope of their contribution.
Potential conflicts of interest may include but are not limited to employment, grants, honoraria, consultancies, stock ownership, paid expert testimony, and patent applications/registrations, and other funding. Authors should report potential conflicts of interest to their editor as early as possible.
Data
Authors may be asked to provide the raw data of their study as part of the editorial review process, and they should be prepared to make their data publicly available if possible. Regardless of whether or not the data is requested during editorial review, authors should arrange for their data to be accessible to other competent professionals for at least ten years after publication, preferably via an institutional or subject-based data repository or other data center. These data accessibility requirements may be waived if research participant confidentiality or legal rights concerning proprietary data require limiting accessibility.
Errors
Authors must cooperate with journal editors to address significant errors or inaccuracies found in their published work. If an author discovers an error on their own, they must promptly notify the journal editor or publisher, and work with the editor to either correct or retract the article. If a third party informs the editor or publisher of a significant error, the author should provide the editor with evidence that the original article was accurate, or work with the editor to correct or retract the article as appropriate.
Simultaneous Submissions & Redundant Publication
In general, authors should not attempt to publish multiple articles describing the same research, or recycling substantial amounts of content from their earlier published articles.
Authors must not submit the same manuscript to more than one journal at a time. When a manuscript is under review, authors must not submit that manuscript to any other publications.
DUP journals generally will not consider material that has already been published elsewhere, and for which the copyright is held by someone other than the author. Individual journals may make exceptions for translations of work previously published in another language as well as creative works; authors should consult editors before submission.
Sources
Authors should always properly acknowledge the work of others. This includes citing material directly quoted or paraphrased in the text, as well as publications influential in determining the nature of the reported work.
Authors may not use information obtained in the course of confidential services without the explicit written permission of the author of the work involved in these services; this includes refereeing manuscripts or grant applications. Similarly, authors may need explicit written permission to use material obtained from private sources, such as conversations, correspondence, or discussion with third parties.
Author Policies
Copyright
Articles in subscription journals are usually published under the copyright of the Press or the journal’s sponsor. Authors retain a variety of rights, including the right to republish the article in any book they may write or edit after the journal issue has appeared.
Articles in Open Access journals are published under a Creative Commons license (BY-NC-ND 4.0) and are open immediately upon publication. Authors retain copyright and full publishing rights without restrictions.
Fees
Authors are not charged any submission or article-processing fees by the Press.
Self-Archiving
Authors may post their accepted article manuscript (AAM) noncommercially, without embargo, on their personal website, in their university repository, and in other nonprofit or governmental open access repositories, with copyright and source information provided along with a link to the published version as soon as it is available. Where required by their funder or institution, authors may also apply a Creative Commons license (BY 4.0) to the AAM. (This approach meets the OA requirements of UKRI and Wellcome, among other funders.)
Editor Responsibilities
Editorial Direction and Decisions
All of the journals at DUP are under the editorial direction of their independent editor or editors. It is the editors who make the final publication decisions. They ensure the accuracy, completeness, and originality of every published article, and they are accountable for all the content published in their journals. All editorial decisions are made following rigorous, fair, and timely peer review.
Confidentiality
Editors should only reveal information concerning a submitted manuscript to the corresponding author, reviewers, editorial board members, or the publisher as is required or otherwise appropriate.
Conflicts of Interest
Editors will recuse themselves from considering a manuscript if their relationship to any author, company, or institution connected to the work results in a conflict of interest. This includes relationships that are competitive, collaborative, or otherwise. Another member of the editorial board must handle the manuscript instead.
Editors and editorial board members will not repurpose material found in a submitted manuscript for their own research purposes without first securing the author’s explicit written consent.
Research Malpractice
Editors must be committed to preserving the integrity of the scholarly version of record. They will review and resolve all instances of potential research malpractice in consultation with authors and DUP’s journals director. This includes significant errors found post-publication, whether discovered by the editor, the author, or a third-party source; suspected plagiarism, fabrication of research, or duplicate publication; and failures to disclose conflicts of interest. Editors will publish corrections and retractions when needed.
Special Issues
Many DUP journals publish special issues. While guest editors often play a key role in selecting articles for these issues, the journal’s independent editor or editors will still make the final publication decisions.
Peer Reviewer Responsibilities
Use of AI and Confidentiality
Reviewers are expected to read manuscripts entirely from beginning to end. If they use AI tools to assist in writing a review, they will disclose this use to the editor.
Reviewers will treat manuscripts for review as confidential documents. Therefore, they will not share information concerning the manuscripts without the approval of the editor. In addition, reviewers will not upload manuscripts to AI platforms during the review process.
Conflicts of Interest
Reviewers will recuse themselves from evaluating a manuscript if their relationship to any author, company, or institution connected to the work results in a conflict of interest. This includes relationships that are competitive, collaborative, or otherwise.
Objectivity
Reviewers must strive to be objective and unbiased, both in their assessment of a manuscript and the written feedback they provide. If a reviewer feels they cannot provide a fair and honest evaluation of a manuscript for whatever reason, they should withdraw. Reviewer comments should include specific data and arguments that support their conclusions, and convey their points in clear language. Personal criticisms of authors are never acceptable and must not appear in reviewer reports regardless of the audience.
Qualification and Timeliness
Reviewers should withdraw from the review process if they think they are unqualified to assess the scholarship or cannot provide an assessment in a timely manner. A reviewer who cannot complete a review on schedule due to changing circumstances should inform the editor as quickly as possible.
Sources
Reviewers should confirm that all previously reported observations, derivations, and arguments included in the manuscript are properly cited. Any relevant published work not cited by the authors should be noted, along with any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript and other published work.