Submissions

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

• Publication Ethics Statement:
  This publication ethics statement of Umma Journal of Contemporary Literature and Creative Arts outlines the expected ethical behaviour for all parties involved in publishing scholarly journal articles, including authors, editors, peer reviewers, and publishers. This statement is an adaptation of some of the Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), which provides resources for editors, peer reviewers, and authors. In this regard, Umma is committed to maintaining high standards of critical scholarly review and professional publishing judgment. The journal is under the editorial direction of independent editors who make decisions regarding the content and ensure accuracy, completeness, and originality. The journal also supports editors in managing their journals ethically and transparently while adhering to established editorial principles and practices.
  EDITORIAL DECISIONS
  With the help of the editorial board, the journal editor decides which articles to publish. The editorial team also formulates policies and guidelines and enforces adherence to legal requirements such as plagiarism, libel, and copyright infringement. The editors may seek help from other editors or reviewers. They evaluate manuscripts for appropriateness and intellectual content, considering the author's gender, race, ethnic origin, religious beliefs, and political philosophy. Unpublished materials from submitted manuscripts must not be used without the author's consent.
  PEER REVIEWER DUTIES
  The journal has a peer review process that aids the editor in determining the quality and suitability of a manuscript for publication. The editor may provide manuscript authors with each peer reviewer’s response, which can help them improve their manuscript. If a reviewer is deemed unqualified or unable to respond promptly, they should inform the editor accordingly. The reviewer must be impartial and notify the editor of any potential conflicts of interest, such as prior co-authorship, a close professional relationship, or a personal relationship. All submissions must be confidential and not shared or discussed with others. The review process must be objective, without personal criticism of the author. Reviewers should express their views clearly and provide supporting arguments. They should identify relevant published work and make the editor aware of any significant resemblance between the manuscript and any other published paper. Any ideas or information obtained through peer review are privileged and confidential. The scholarly peer review process applies only to original research articles, not other academic content.
  AUTHORSHIP
  Authors must only comprise those who have contributed significantly to the research or study and should be listed as co-authors. Any financial or other conflict of interest should be disclosed in the manuscript, and all sources of financial support should be appropriately acknowledged.
  Moreover, authors of original research papers must provide an accurate description of the research and an objective discussion of its importance to the field. All evidence and supporting data should be represented accurately, and references should be included for reconstruction. It is unacceptable to intentionally include inaccurate statements or fabricated data in the manuscript, as doing so is unethical.
  Furthermore, authors must guarantee that their submitted work contains no content that may be considered libellous or infringing on another party's copyright. If authors have used the work and/or words of others, they must appropriately cite or quote such materials by fair use practices. Authors must acknowledge the work of others and cite all publications that have been influential in determining their scholarly understanding of the subject of their paper.
  Submitting the same manuscript to multiple journals concurrently constitutes unacceptable publishing conduct. If an author decides to submit the manuscript to another journal, they must request the journal editor to withdraw their manuscript from consideration.
  
  ERRORS IN PUBLISHED WORKS
  The author must quickly tell the journal editor or publisher of any grave error or inaccuracy found in their published paper, and work with them to retract or fix the publication. The journal editor will review and decide in consultation with Umma if a significant error has been published for which a correction is required, or if there is cause for concern regarding issues like plagiarism, research fabrication, duplicate publication, or failure to disclose conflicts of interest. Thus, the publisher pledges always to uphold the integrity of the academic version of the record.
  
• DOUBLE-BLIND PEER REVIEW: Umma Journal of Contemporary Literature and Creative Arts uses the double-anonymised peer review, whereby authors and reviewers remain anonymous. The identity of all the persons involved is known only to the editor. The likelihood of bias in the peer review process is lessened with double-masked peer review. In this sense, the journal employs reviewers who are qualified and possess the necessary subject-matter knowledge for an article, which may intentionally present a conflict of interest. Therefore, keeping the author’s name a secret keeps personal or professional motives from tainting the reviewer's neutrality.
  The journal ensures that all personal information and metadata are removed from the manuscript submitted for consideration, as it can be challenging to provide a fully anonymous review. Additionally, authors must ensure that any references to their prior work do not reveal their identity to peer reviewers, who are likely knowledgeable about the research and researchers in their field. Today, editors may be concerned that achieving absolute author anonymity may be challenging due to the influence of search engines. Nevertheless, the Journal strives to minimise any accidental disclosure.
  In addition, even though objectivity is highly valued in academia, other forms of prejudice, such as discrimination based on gender, ethnicity, and race, must be considered. Against this backdrop, research has indicated that double-masked peer review can help prevent these biases. Therefore, maintaining the privacy of the writers’ affiliations can also prevent reputation from swaying reviews, a strategy that Umma adheres to with fidelity.
  
• The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
• The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, RTF, or WordPerfect document file format.
• Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
• The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
• The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines, which is found in About the Journal.
• If submitting to a peer-reviewed section of the journal, the instructions in Ensuring a Blind Review have been followed.