JBLAC Ethics Guide

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Preamble to Guide

Justice

Article Submission

Research Ethics

Conflicts of Interest

Peer Review

Post-Production

Preamble to Guide

The JBLAC Ethics Guide is central to our mission of advancing knowledge about the intersections of language and culture practiced by Black people in the United States, the African continent, and throughout the diaspora.  We draw on guidance from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), major publishers (e.g., LSA, Cambridge University Press), and leading scholars.

1. Justice

We aim to ensure that the publishing process, from submission and review to publication and scholarly engagement, not only adheres to the highest standards of truth but is fair, humanizing, and ultimately promotes the professional and intellectual development of all participants involved.  At root, this is about justice, both epistemic and social, liberation, and actualization.  This is a collective endeavor.  The following are our guidelines for various forms.

A: Community-engaged research that practices an ethic of humility: JBLAC’s role in advancing justice begins with the processes through which scholarship is created.  We encourage researchers to engage in critical reflection throughout their research process, acknowledge their positionality, and base their interaction with research participants in a commitment to collaboration and reciprocity.  Underlying all this is an ethic of humility. (Limes-Taylor Henderson & Esposito, 2017)  

B: Attention to diverse Black approaches to justice and liberation: JBLAC recognizes the multifaceted nature of Black life and commits to the same principles as a journal that we encourage in our contributors.   Our commitment to justice entails a never-ceasing engagement with the roots of Black study, which is liberation. However, an ethic of humility acknowledges that it can take many forms, not least owing to our tremendous social, cultural, and geographic diversity. We encourage members of the JBLAC team to be conversant in both the Black practical and the Black radical. That is, on the one hand, approaches that are principally attuned towards matters of access and inclusion, and the practicalities of extant power relations.  And still, on the other hand, approaches solidly in the tradition of Harding’s Institute of the Black World – those aimed at systemic transformation  and retaining a consciousness of “community-in-struggle.” (The Lost Promise of Black Study)

C. The National Council of Teacher Educators observes, “As both a product and an engine of human culture, language is inherently dynamic and ever-evolving.”  JBLAC recognizes this dynamism and aims to be at the leading edge of justice in our language practices. There are many conventions in the realm of language; not all can be enumerated here. Authors are also encouraged to reference the Linguistic Society of America’s guidance on inclusive language, which can be found here: LSA Inclusive Language Guidelines.

D. Reflexivity and positionality: To support the goal of justice, JBLAC encourages authors to acknowledge and describe their positionality and positioning in an appropriate section of their manuscript. We will offer an option for authors to add their specific positionality information after the article has been reviewed to preserve their anonymity during the review process. We also acknowledge that the nature of some articles may make it difficult for the author to remain completely anonymous for many reviewers and will work to ensure the integrity of the review process in such cases by working to secure reviewers who are less familiar with the author and their work.

II. Article Submission

A. Authorship

All contributors to an article qualifying as authors should be identified as such. On submission, the lead and co-authors will confirm that they meet authorship requirements.  All authors must agree upon author order.  Any change in author order or author list must be agreed upon by the authors, requested in writing, and approved by the editorial team.  Each contributor will provide an ORCID (Open Research Contributor  ID), unless they reasonably would not be expected to possess one (e.g., undergraduates or those unaffiliated with academic institutions). ORCID ensures that research output is accurately associated with its author.  Upon submission, the authors will include an “author contribution statement” which describes how each person contributed to the submitted work. Where useful, authors may also briefly describe their respective contributions in an appropriate section of the manuscript. We will utilize the  CRediT “Contributor Roles Taxonomy”  standard and associate it with author metadata and ORCID profiles. 

B. Redundancy

New submissions should not have been submitted to other journals before or during the review process.  With limited exceptions, all submissions must be neither duplicative nor redundant. Thus, content that is verbatim in other publications or materially identical should not be submitted and shall not be accepted. Per guidance of the Council of Science Editors, “Secondary publications resulting from a study should cite the primary publication and should be different enough to warrant a secondary publication (e.g., translation into a different language, extensive reanalysis of the already published data).” (CSE’s Recommendations for Promoting Integrity in Scientific Journal Publications).  In addition to screening manuscripts for duplicative text, to avoid redundancy, JBLAC will also 1) require clear attribution of any previously published or quoted text and 2) include a warranty that the manuscript is an original work, has not been published, and has not been submitted for publication. Use of an Open Access Agreement will occur consistent with LSA conventions.  

Submissions that are “more complete and substantially refined or revised versions of research reports that have been or are to be published in a briefer form, such as in a conference proceedings or working papers volume” are not considered redundant. (LSA Guidelines) 

C. Plagiarism

The US Office of Research Integrity (ORI) defines “plagiarism to include both the theft or misappropriation of intellectual property and the substantial unattributed textual copying of another’s work. It does not include authorship or credit disputes.” JBLAC will explain to contributors how their submissions are screened to avoid plagiarism, whether intended or unintended, and duplicitous.  We will use an established prevention service such as Crossref Similarity Check.  COPE provides guidance for avoiding, managing, and resolving such matters.  Editors should consult the resources COPE has made available here.

D. Generative AI

JBLAC does not regard Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) as capable of authorship but does understand GenAI can provide valuable assistance in scholarly research, production, and review. JBLAC contributors must disclose in reasonable detail the use of (GenAI) tools used to develop any portion of their manuscript. Such uses include content or image generation, coding, data generation (including data simulation), analysis and processing, or translation.  Consistent with the goal of transparency in authorship, authors should use,  wherever possible, watermarked artifacts when generating or representing content or images. Uses of GenAI should be included in a cover letter to editors and, as applicable, within their manuscripts’ Methodology or Acknowledgements sections.  During manuscript submission, authors should also have the option to indicate their consent to or refusal of the use of AI tools by those involved in the manuscript review process. For more information, please refer to Cambridge University Press’s standards on generative AI use, available here. 

III. Research Ethics

JBLAC hopes to foster ethical practices in the conduct of research.  Conforming with customary expectations, submissions based on human subjects should provide the name of the local ethics committee that approved the study and/or state how the study upholds relevant recognized standards.  

A. Research

1. Advancing anti-racism: Given our focus on the interactions of Black language and culture, we encourage research responsive to LSA’s mandate for more research that  “explore[s] how race intersects with other social categories and forms of social identification and grouping, particularly in ways that are not presented in a binary frame.”  A significant aspect of this is research examining institutionalized and systemic racism.

2. Attention to cultural representation and voice: Researchers should ensure that the representations of their research participants and subjects are fair and accurate. LSA’s assertion of “the ethical responsibility of linguists to accurately reflect speakers’ identities in research” (LSA Statement on Race) extends across disciplines. Researchers are encouraged to take steps to incorporate participant voice and input, beyond baseline practices of member-checking.

3. Attention to cultural variation: We encourage authors, throughout the conduct of research represented in their manuscripts, to also be attuned to instances when monoracial classifications may obscure important aspects of identity that prove important to linguistic and cultural variation. (LSA Statement on Race)

B. Methods

1. Researchers should consider the extent to which their research might satisfy established global and national ethical standards yet potentially compromise local expectations.  Authors should take steps during their research to identify local independent community institutional review boards that approve or inform research and publication of culturally sensitive matters.  One way to do this is to use the US Office for Human Research Protections' searchable database of these community-level boards.  

2. Informed consent: JBLAC requires authors to submit proof of informed consent to participate in the study and to publish results.

3. Participant information and images: Any research including participants’ information and images will not be published without proof of prior informed consent.

4. Adherence to the above-described ethical standards should be indicated in the Methodology (or another appropriate section) of empirical manuscripts.

5. If the author uses GenAI tools in their research, they should acknowledge in their cover letter or manuscript how they contended with the attendant ethical challenges or limitations.

C. Citation

1. Submissions must include proper citations of others’ work, particularly publications that present the hypotheses, ideas, or data that the submission is based on or addresses.

2. If information from a source is cited, and that information originated elsewhere, the original source should also be cited.

3. Authors should avoid citational manipulation, including excessive self-citation, particularly when such action is self-promotional.

4. JBLAC does not regard practices such as those articulated in the Cite Black Women as citational manipulation referred to above. Scholars should actively engage in the practice of citational justice, which involves remedying the historical marginalization of epistemes by Black, female, non-white, queer, and disabled people that represent diverse canons and perspectives.

5. Refrain from insisting on canonical citations that may perpetuate harmful or oppressive ideas.

IV. Conflicts of Interest

JBLAC uses the LSA definition of conflict of interest.  A conflict of interest exists in a situation where, for any submission, any member of the editorial team, or a reviewer assigned to such submission, might gain monetarily from its acceptance or rejection.  A conflict of interest also exists when the author and evaluator of a submission have one of the following relationships:

• professional collaboration within the past 5 years
• close friendship
• relatives
• employer/employee 
• academic advisor/advisee
• employment in the same department or program in an institutional unit
• mutual involvement in an academic controversy “that is or was acrimonious beyond the bounds of normal and civil scholarly disagreement.”

Guidelines for various journal actors are as follows:

A. Editors

A member of the editorial team must not handle any submission where they would be involved in any conflict of interest, real or perceived.  Editorial responsibility should be delegated to another member of the editorial team.  Editors responsible for evaluating a potential conflict of interest involving a peer reviewer will assess whether a referee report would still be appropriate and will notify the reviewer as to whether or not they may proceed with the review.  (LSA Guidelines).

B. Authors

Authors must disclose to JBLAC any potential conflict of interest. They must also ensure that there are no contractual relations or proprietary considerations that might be affected by the acceptance of their manuscript.  Authors should also acknowledge in an appropriate section of their manuscript any funding sources relevant to the completion or publication of the research reported in a submission. This includes government agencies, private foundations, private industry, and universities.

C. Peer Reviewers

A peer reviewer should disclose any real or perceived conflict of interest to the members of the editorial team before agreeing to submit a referee report. (LSA Guidelines).

D. Disclosure forms [To be included, as necessary]

V. Peer Review

Our work is fundamentally dependent upon the integrity of peer review.  JBLAC regards peer review not merely as an input in the production of scholarly communication.  It is also an integral element in the development of scholars committed to scholarship as a collective endeavor. This is a human process. It should also be humanizing. Submissions that are outside of JBLAC's scope or that do not meet the journal's standard of rigor will be desk rejected by the Lead Editor or other editor designated with this authority. It is expected that all other submissions will undergo peer review. 

A. Basic Guidelines (LSA Guidelines)

1. Anonymity– - Double-anonymous peer review is the default process for submissions to JBLAC. However, in order to respect the lived experiences of authors as forms of expertise, in rare cases where author identity cannot be fully concealed (e.g., because of the nature of the data, lived experience, or methodology), JBLAC allows authors to choose whether they wish to undergo a single- or double-anonymous review process.  Where authors choose anonymity, members of the editorial team must not disclose the identity of authors and reviewers to each other.  Any concerns about maintaining anonymity should be brought to the EIC.

2. Confidentiality - All items under consideration are to be treated as confidential

3. Discussion - Except upon written permission of the Executive Editor, reviewers must carry out the review themself and must not discuss the submission with others.  See also note below on GenAI.

4. Integrity - Unless the author has given written permission to do so, reviewers may not use any information from a submission, including data, theories or ideas,  information, data, theories, or ideas from their submission, until it is in press or has been published or presented

5. Vigilance - Reviewers are encouraged to notify the corresponding member of the editorial team and EIC if they are aware of publications or manuscripts under consideration for publication elsewhere that appear to be essentially identical to what they have been asked to review.

B. Generative AI

Reviewers and editors electing to use GenAI must do so only on a limited basis.  Any use by reviewers to improve the quality of their peer review feedback must be disclosed to the assigned JBLAC editor(s).  Peer reviewers should not upload manuscripts (or any parts of manuscripts, including figures and tables) into GenAI tools or services except with the express, written permission of the editor, and only if such tools or services are local and offline.     Such acts could jeopardize the confidentiality of the review process, the privacy of the author, editor, or reviewer, and the copyright of the manuscript.  Editors should likewise refrain from the use of GenAI tools or services in the review process.   For additional guidance standards as outlined in COPE’s position statement on Authorship and AI tools. 

VI. Post-Production

JBLAC regards its role in supporting scholarship that advances scholarship on black language and culture as extending beyond the initial moment of publication. Our post-publication guidelines cover significant aspects of post-publication, including correction, retraction, handling expressions of concerns, and withdrawal.  They are adapted from Wiley Author Services and COPE guidelines and can be found here.