The editorial process for every manuscript submitted to the journal undergoes the following process during the course of the review:
The Editor in Chief (EIC) with his Editorial Team (Editor, Co-Editor, Associate, Managing and Assistant Editors) of Ad Litteram: An English Journal of International Literati ISSN 2456 6624 very critically inspects the submitted manuscripts. The team takes a decision here only as to what would be the later course of action to the manuscript submitted. On the basis of the peripheral norms of the submission guidelines, the team makes the decision to either accept or reject the submitted manuscript. The manuscript shall go only to the process of the blind peer review when it has got sanction and approval at the first stage itself from the Editorial Team. If the EIC team determines that the manuscript is not of sufficient quality to go through the normal review work flow or if the subject of the manuscript is not appropriate to the journal's suggested theme, then the manuscript without further processing may be rejected. If the EIC team comprehends the fact that the submitted manuscript is of sufficient quality and falls within the scope of the journal, they then send it to at least two or more external reviewers for the blind peer-review. These external reviewers will be selected by the EIC from the list of potential reviewers from the Board of Reviewers of the journal's apex committee based on their availability for a quality review. The Editorial Team may choose even those academician or intellectual outside the Board if the need is felt so. EIC Team shall remain in touch with all the board members frequently to ascertain their due work assigned to them.
Peer Reviewers submit their review reports on the manuscripts along with their recommendation of one of the following actions to the Editor in Chief (EIC) :
- Publish Unaltered.
- Publish after Minor Changes.
- Review Again after Major Changes.
- Reject: Manuscript is flawed or not sufficiently novel.
Review Process:
The review process is double-blind; that is, the reviewer does not know who the manuscript author(s) is and the author(s) does not know who has reviewed the manuscript.
In fact, The ALJ defines “Double-blind” in a different way. It goes for the second review of the manuscript when it is found necessary.
Sometimes, it may also go for the third review if any such need arises.
Further, if there is any correction in the manuscript, The Ad Litteram Journal’s reviewers will correct the same with an approval from the Board.
Corrections/Edited manuscripts will not be disclosed to the Manuscript authors for want of time.
That is, Galley Proofs will not be sent to the Primary/Communicating author.
Once the publication process is over, copies of online versions of respective journals will be sent to the Primary/Communicating author's address.
Review process comprises 2 steps:
Step 1: Your paper will be sent for "Technical Acceptance", where in the technicalities will be validated by the peer reviewers. Once it is done, we will send the outcome to the authors so as to enable them to send or refer them to the Copyright Form (CRT form) available on the website.
Step 2: Second step would be "Publication Process".
Upon the receipt of the approval from the Reviewers and filled-in CRT form, your paper will be sent to production department for publication process wherein the paper will be subjected for Size of paper, Flow of information etc., checks which are related to non-technicalities.
Plagiarism found in any manuscript at any (later) stage of the publication at the official website of the journal is not at all the responsibility of the Journal or of any of its members. Any issue, whatsoever they are, will be concerned with the contributors/authors of those manuscripts.
If any intimation of this kind is made to the journal by any person, the concerned author shall be informed about it.
For the published manuscripts, it is not possible to remove them from the database or from the contents already published.
In such cases, The ALJ will make a special provision; it will officially announce such articles on its website as having no connection with it as far its publication value is concerned.
Author(s) can choose either to withdraw the paper or resubmit the paper after due corrections.
If they choose the former, the information about it will be published on the website but if they choose the latter, The ALJ has no problem in uploading the revised edition of such papers.
The Editor-in-Chief (EIC) of Ad Litteram: An English Journal of International Literati ISSN 2456 6624 has the authority and reserves the right to reject any manuscript submitted because of inappropriateness of its subject content, lack of quality, incorrectness of its results & recommendations, inaccuracies in the experimentations etc.
at any stage. He will not be liable to disclose the reasons to anyone. The final conclusion on publication is made by the EIC upon the recommendation of Expert members – reviewers or the editorial board members. Nevertheless, EIC’s decision is final with respect to the acceptance or rejection of a manuscript for all the journal publications, assignment of paper to a journal, journal management w.r.t their categories, names, disciplines etc.,
If an article meets the preliminary requirements, the article will be processed for review, which could take up to 1- 2 months.
All articles are blindly peer reviewed.
The criteria used for reviewing articles are:
- contemporary relevance,
- contribution to knowledge,
- originality,
- experimental studies and analysis, if applicable
- clarity and logic in analysis,
- methodology (for research articles),
- implications for intervention,
- appropriateness of references, and
- language, its use and flow
Changes in the papers: No changes in paper will be accepted once the decision of acceptance is announced through email to the communicating/corresponding author.
So, authors are requested to make all the corrections well prior to the decision of acceptance for paper publication announced to the authors/scholars.
If there are any changes to be made in the paper once the publication is done, the feasibility and possibility of changes will be determined by the editorial team and the team’s decision is final.
For the discrepancy or errors in the text at any stage after its publication will fall with the contributors, not with The ALJ team members in any case.
Discrepancies in the paper: Also if there is any discrepancy in the paper published in our journal (Example could be due to manual error), this should be reported to us within 5 working days of the publication of the articles in our journal.
Any complaints issues received after 5 working days of the publication of the articles in our journal will not be entertained for resolution and it will have no legal claim in any court or there cannot be any case against the journal.
Manuscript/Paper withdrawal: Authors/Scholars are allowed to withdraw their paper(s) only within 1 week from the date of acceptance of paper.
Acceptance notification will be sent to the authors through email.
If there is an explicitly written withdrawal mail from the communicating author within 1 week from the date of acceptance of paper, the paper will be withdrawn from the publication process immediately. Otherwise EIC and the Editorial Board will decide whether to publish/reject the paper.
This policy is followed strictly to avoid unnecessary hurdles created by the indecisiveness of the scholar for the journals.
Copyright: Each manuscript must be accompanied by a statement that it has been neither published nor submitted for publication, in whole or in part, either in a serial, professional journal or as a part in a book which is formally published and made available to the public.
If the manuscript is accepted for publication in our journal, it must not be published in any periodical(s) elsewhere without the permission of the editorial board.
If the manuscript is accepted for publication in our journal, it will be communicated to the author(s) who submitted the same through e-mail or telephone.
Author(s) is/are expected to send the Copyright Transfer Agreement within 10 working days from the date of acceptance of paper (Scanned copy of the Copyright Transfer Agreement form is accepted). If there is no communication (either positive or negative) from the concerned author(s), then it is up to the EIC to have a final verdict w.r.t the publication status. It may either be sent to the publication unit for publication or be out rightly rejected. In the CRT, the authors are there to take onus and give statement that they will be liable for any kind of plagiarism and other related issues like this.
Those whose manuscripts are not found publishable, The ALJ does not take responsibility for informing the contributors about the same.
Conflicts of Interest Policy:
At the point of submission, the Ad Litteram Journal’s Policy requires each author to reveal any financial interests or connections, direct or indirect, or other situations that might raise the question of bias in the work reported or the conclusions, implications, or opinions stated for the individual author(s) or for the associated department(s) or organization(s), personal relationships, or direct academic competition.
As an integral part of the online submission process, Corresponding authors are required to confirm whether they or their co-authors have any conflicts of interest to declare, and to provide details of these.
If the Corresponding author is unable to confirm this information on behalf of all co-authors, the authors in question will then be required to submit a completed Conflict of Interest form to the Editorial Office by mail.
It is the Corresponding author’s responsibility to ensure that all authors adhere to this policy.
If the manuscript is published, Conflict of Interest information will be communicated in a statement in the published.
The Ad Litteram Procedural Mechanism
In all the affairs, The ALJ acknowledges the right of the Editor-in-Chief as reserved over everything.
In this regard, there are many aspects which must be stated:
- The common procedure to become a part of the Editorial/Reviewers’/Advisors’ Board is to send one’s CV to the journal (Editor-in-Chief) by email. The CV and the candidature (whichever board it has been submitted for) both are discussed among the members of the editorial board, and as per decision the respective candidate is informed about the same.
- In this case, the Editor-in-Chief may choose anyone against any Board on his own discretion without consulting any member of the Board. The Editor-in-Chief may select any “worthy” candidate even without any communication made to the former by the respective candidate via email.
- The Editor-in-Chief may remove or add anyone from the Board of Editors, the Board of Reviewers and the Board of the Advisors without giving any reason(s) to the Board members as well as the respective candidate.
- When certification of any kind is required for any candidate or a Board member, it is to be done by both the Editor-in-Chief and the Chairperson together though in special cases it may also be done by the Editor-in-Chief only.
- In case of the selection of the manuscripts for publication, the general procedure of the review of the manuscripts is conducted through the Board of Reviewers, but, despite following this procedure, the Editor-in-Chief has the right to choose a manuscript on his own preference and publish the same without consulting anyone (the Board member). In this special case, the Editor-in-Chief is not supposed to keep any record(s) as the Reviewer’s report, consent and the like, for there is none.
- As a member of the Board of the Editors, the common rule is that one should be a doctorate. But it is not a hard and fast rule. If the Editor-in-Chief evaluates someone of the potential and finds him or her suitable, he may select the one to be its member. The post of the Assistant Editors is mainly meant for the students, preferably the researchers. But, even for this, the Editor-in-Chief may select someone with any degree, not mandatorily in consonance with the pre-requisites of the same if he finds a student capable of supporting the Journal. The same is applicable for the Board of Reviewers as well.
- The journal is of multidisciplinary in nature. This is the reason why scholars from any discipline can submit their manuscripts. What is needed is to abide by the theme of the annum. This is the reason why there is not a necessary binding on the members of the Editorial Board to be from the field of English Literature only. It is rather more benefiting to have intellectuals from the creative writing field, Philosophy and Sanskrit.
- The copyright agreement is mandatory to be submitted by the candidate whose manuscript has been finally selected for publication. But, if in any case, the candidate fails to submit, the Editor-in-Chief has the right to publish it. In this case, the filled-in copyright agreement form (by the contributor) may not be found with the Editor-in-Chief.
- Once the manuscript is published by the Journal, it cannot be published elsewhere by the respective contributor. This has to be taken care of by the contributor.
- Once the manuscript is finalised for publication, it cannot be withdrawn by the contributors in any condition.
- The annual expenditure (whatever it is) is to be borne by each member of the Board of the Editors to maintain the website. The ALJ does not charge for the publication of the manuscripts in any form.
- For all these changes, alterations and modifications as mentioned above, the Editor-in-Chief is not liable to any authority to give any reply.
- Anything hurtful or harmful text mentioned in the published manuscripts (if found any point of time) may be changed or altered if it is found by the contributor(s) or the members of the journal. But no consideration can be taken if the same is not informed by anyone beyond these two categories within a week of the publication of the manuscripts. Any claim made thereafter shall not be eligible. The ALJ takes no responsibility with them; all the onus (if any) shall be with the contributors. In all such cases, they will be informed about any such thing communicated with the Journal.
- Anyone connected with the Journal in any form is deemed to have read every single information on the website or have already sought clarification about all and everything and agreed to them. Any claim to be made against The ALJ does not thus have any valid ground.
Publication Charges: There is NO PUBLICATION CHARGES in Ad Litteram: An English Journal of International Literati. Any charge if taken by any member of the journal may be reported to the EIC. Ad Litteram Journal is a self-supporting body and does not receive funding from any institutions and government. Hence, the operation of the journal is solely financed by the Editorial Team to maintain the quality fabrics of the journal.