Carnets, Electronic Journal of French Studies, is a biannual online publication, created in 2009 (second series since 2014). Carnets is the result of the collaborative work of authors, editors and reviewers strongly committed to promote scientific quality and ethical publication practices in the area of French and Francophone Studies from the Portuguese University. The journal upholds the standards of publication ethics as set out by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE - https://publicationethics.org), and guarantees non-discrimination of race, gender, and diversity of political, philosophical and religious opinion. Any case of ethical misconduct will be treated in accordance with the COPE guidelines.

Authors and Authors’ responsibilities

All authors must have significantly contributed to the research submitted in the article and fully respect the intellectual property code. They must also clearly and accurately identify all authors involved in the research and publication and must ensure that the article is not plagiarized, wholly or in part.  

Authors must submit for publication only original articles that have not been previously published or submitted for publication elsewhere.

Authors must include the data obtained and sources used, as well as an objective description of the results. Authors must identify as such any quotation or use of the work of others.

Authors must acknowledge and respect the ethical code of the journal and observe proper scientific conduct.

Authors are required to present their results or arguments clearly, and must not falsify or manipulate data. The data and the results must be original, and should not have been copied, invented or manipulated in any way. No form of plagiarism, multiple or redundant publication will be allowed, and any ethical and scientific misconduct will be sanctioned.

Authors shall notify the Executive Board in case of direct or indirect conflict of interest with the editors.

Authors are committed to participate proactively in the article’s double blind peer review process, taking into account the suggestions and arguments of the reviewers.

It is also their responsibility to provide the list of the permissions required for publication of all parts of the article that may be subject to copyright.

Authors should acknowledge all funding sources for the work in question.

If any errors or material inaccuracies are found in the published work, authors must notify Carnets. In the case of an error identified by a member of the Executive Board, such error will be conveyed to the author. It is up to the Executive Board to decide on the withdrawal or correction of the article.

No financial participation will be required from authors wishing to publish in Carnets.

Each author will be asked to sign a “Statement of originality and copyright permission”.

Responsibilities of the Executive Board

The Executive Board must accomplish, with objectivity, confidentiality and impartiality, the publication of the works submitted for publication, from their reception to their review, according to their scientific content. The Executive Board is committed to preserving the anonymity of the reviewers and the authors, and should ensure the right of reply of the authors in case of negative review.

The Executive Board is responsible for publishing corrections or retraction of articles containing errors and will prevent any conflict of interest with respect to accepted or rejected articles.

No member of the Executive Board may use for his or her own benefit the data or contents of unpublished works without the explicit consent of the authors.

The Executive Board reserves the right to exclude from the Peer Review Board any reviewer who makes incorrect, disrespectful, untimely, unjustified, or low quality reviews, in the name of the quality of the journal and its review process.

Publication decision

The Executive Board sends each text to at least two members of the journal’s Peer Review Board or to external reviewers who are experts in the specific required fieldwork. The article will thus be double-blind peer reviewed. Each reviewer is asked to fill in the evaluation sheet used by the journal, indicating his or her acceptance, rejection and any aspects to be reformulated. In the event of two contradictory opinions, a third one will be requested from an expert.

Any decision concerning the acceptance, the refusal or the request for reformulation will be conveyed by e-mail to the authors.

The author must make any corrections requested by the reviewers and the editors within the specified deadlines. The revised version of the articles will be submitted for a new reading. The final decision of acceptance rests with the Peer Review Board, the editors, and, ultimately, the Director of the journal.

The final decision on the acceptance or rejection of the article, in the case of contradictory evaluations, after three evaluations, rests with the Director of the journal. The journal editors must abstain from editorial decisions in cases of conflict of interest.

Responsibilities of the Editors

Editors must acknowledge and agree to follow the journal’s general editorial policy, its code of ethics and editorial standards, which are published on the journal’s website.

Editors are required to work closely with the journal’s Executive Board throughout the entire publication process, from reception of the articles to their publication, in accordance with the editorial policy and editorial guidelines.

The editors are responsible for the technical and (ortho)graphic proofreading of the articles in accordance with the editorial protocol of the journal (texts, notes, citations, bibliography...).

The editors commit themselves to respecting and ensuring the respect of the deadlines, so as not to disrupt the periodicity of the journal and the deadlines imposed by the OpenEdition electronic resources portal.

Responsibilities of the Peer Review Board

Reviewers are selected according to their expertise in their specific fieldworks. Articles are reviewed by a minimum of two independent reviewers. The identities of both author and referee are kept confidential throughout the refereeing process.

It is the duty of the reviewer to make an assessment, indicating if the article is publishable as is; not publishable; or conditionally accepted (publishable after revisions are made) and fill in and sign the evaluation sheet. The relevant criteria for this assessment are as follows: suitability to the subject and to the proposed field(s) of study, originality and relevance, good use of recent bibliographical references, methodological approach, quality of writing, and compliance with the journal’s editorial policy.

Reviewers will be asked to point out any relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors.

Reviewers are required to maintain the confidentiality of the review process and to judge articles objectively and impartially.

Reviewers must automatically reject any text that does not comply with the intellectual property code.

Reviewers should disclose any conflict of interest with the research, the authors, or the research funding sources.

Guidelines in case of retraction or correction of items

In cases of actual or suspected misconduct, the Director of Carnets is responsible for resolving the issue. He or she collaborates with the editors, members of the Executive Board the Peer Review Board, and the external reviewers. All important documents and correspondence regarding the article must be kept. In the event of detected or reported misconduct, Carnet’s Director should contact the author and/or the publication concerned. The author of the article in question must be given the opportunity to respond to the complaint, allegation, or dispute. The Executive Board must address the case in question in accordance with COPE’s recommendations for proven or alleged misconduct or necessary corrections. Every effort will be made to distinguish between honest human error and intentional fraud.

Access, licensing and archiving

Articles are published in open access. No subscription or pay-per-view fees are charged. All material published by Carnets is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license. All of the journal’s content is archived in multiple copies by OpenEdition, a publisher of open access books and journals online. If Carnets ceases publication, OpenEdition will maintain free access and continue to make all archives available online.