Aim and Scope

The mission of the journal

- familiarization of the Russian and international scientific community with the results of scientific researches of various scientific schools, as well as independent researchers, on a broad range of philosophical and socio-humanitarian issues;

- expanding professional communication space for interdisciplinary dialogue, as well as generating a favorable information environment to support innovative areas of development of fundamental and applied research in modern humanities; 

- assistance in the career of young researchers and the formation of human resources for humanitarian departments of universities and scientific organizations.

Aims of the journal

-      acquaintance of a large scientific and pedagogical audience to current trends in ontology, epistemology and methodology of social and humanitarian knowledge in the era of metamodern;

-      reflection of the dynamics of research in the field of philosophy, cultural studies, sociology, political science and linguistics, provided by a broad range of authors, both recognized scientists and specialists and starting their career young researchers  from universities and scientific organizations of Russia and foreign countries;

-      publication of materials of educational and methodological significance for teachers of educational institutions at various levels, young scientists and all interested readers;

-      integration of Russian and foreign scientific schools and individual scientists, working in the focus of a multidisciplinary approach in the problematic fields of philosophy, sociology and linguistics;

-      compliance with high international standards of ethics of scientific publications and maintaining a responsible attitude to the publication of research results.

Section Policies

PHILOSOPHY -

Ontology and theory of knowledge, ethics, logic, philosophy of science and technology, social philosophy, philosophical anthropology, philosophy of culture.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

SOCIOLOGY -

Theory, methodology and history of sociology, social structure, social institutions and processes, political sociology, sociology of culture, management sociology.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

LINGUISTICS -

Germanic languages, language theory, applied and mathematical linguistics.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

ИЗ РЕДАКЦИОННОЙ ПОЧТЫ

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Publication Frequency

6 issues per year

Open Access Policy

"Discourse" provides an open access to its content. All papers are available to readers upon publication.

Our open access policy complies with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition. It means that papers are  free available in the internet; any users are permitted to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these papers; it is possible to crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers.

For more information please read BOAI statement.

Archiving

• Russian State Library (RSL)
• National Electronic-Information Consortium (NEICON)

Peer-Review

"Discourse" operates a double-blind peer review process.

Reviewers remain unknown to authors and receive a letter with comments signed by the chief editor.

1. Manuscripts are reviewed by members of the editorial board, as well as guest reviewers - leading experts in the relevant area of Russia and other countries. The decision to choose one or another reviewer for the assessment of the paper is made by the chief editor, deputy chief editor, scientific editor, and head of the section.  The review period is 2-4 weeks, but at the request of the reviewer it can be extended.
2. Each paper is sent to 2 reviewers.
3. Each reviewer should refuse to review if there is a clear conflict of interest, affecting the perception and interpretation of manuscript materials.  Based on the results of the manuscript review, the reviewer makes recommendations on the fate of the paper (each decision of the reviewer is justified):

• the paper is recommended for publication in its current form;
• the paper is recommended for publication after the correction of the deficiencies noted by the reviewer;
• the paper needs additional review by another specialist;
• the paper cannot be published in the Journal.

4. If the review contains recommendations for correcting and finalizing the paper, the editorial board sends the author the text of the review with a proposal to consider them when preparing a new version of the paper or to refute them in part or in full.  Refinement of the paper should not take more two months from the date of sending an electronic message to the authors about the need to make changes.
5. In case of refusal of the authors to finalize the materials, they should notify the editors in writing or orally about their refusal to publish the paper.  If the authors do not return the revised version after 3 months from the date of sending the review, even if there is no information from the authors with a refusal to finalize the paper, the editors remove it from the register.  In such situations, the authors are sent a notice on the removal of the manuscript from registration due to the expiration of the time allotted for revision.
6. If the author and reviewers have encountered insoluble contradictions regarding the manuscript, the editorial board has the right to send the manuscript for additional review.  In conflict situations, the chief editor makes the decision.
7. The decision to refuse to publish the manuscript is made at a meeting of the editorial board complying with the recommendations of the reviewers.  A paper not recommended for publication by the decision of the editorial board is not accepted for re-consideration. 
8. In case there are negative reviews and the decision of the editorial board to refuse publication, a reasoned refusal is sent to the author by e-mail.
9. After the editorial board of the Journal has made a decision on the admission of a paper to publication, the editorial office informs the author about this and mentions the date of publication.
10. A positive review is not a sufficient basis for the publication of a paper.  The editorial board makes the final decision on publication.  In conflict situations, the chief editor makes the decision.
11. The originals of reviews are kept in the editorial office of the Journal for 5 years.
12. Not peer-reviewed are the following papers:

• papers of members of the state academy of sciences;
• o papers recommended for publication: scientific reports heard at meetings, congresses, conferences, etc.;
• informational and informational and advertising messages and announcements.

13. The editors send copies of reviews to the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation and the Higher Attestation Commission under the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation upon receipt of a relevant request. 

Indexation

Papers in "Discourse" are indexed by:

• Russian Index for Science Citation (RISC) – a database, accumulating information on papers of Russian scientists. The RSCI project is under development since 2005 by “Electronic Scientific Library” foundation (elibrary.ru).
• Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. The Google Scholar index includes most peer-reviewed online journals of Europe and America's largest scholarly publishers, as well as scholarly books and other non-peer reviewed journals.
• TheLens
• Research4life
• WorldCat
• SOCIONET
• DOAJ
• Mendeley

Publishing Ethics

Introduction

The publication of research materials is an integral part of a scientist’s professional activity, one of the most important channels of scientific communication and factors of progress in science.  The editors of the Journal “Discourse” are committed to following the principles of scientific and ethical publishing. 

Section I. General Provisions 

1. The editorial board follows the recommendations of the International Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Council of Scientific Editors (CSE) and the Declaration of the Association of Scientific Editors and Publishers (ASEP) “Ethical Principles of Scientific Publications”;

2. The Journal is guided by the Law of the Russian Federation of December 27, 1991 N 2124-I "On the Media", the provisions of Chapter 70 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation "Copyright" and international standards for authors (Responsible research publication: international standards for authors);

3. The Journal publishes materials submitted by the author complying with the Rules of cooperation with the editors and the Copyright agreement.

The following are ethical guidelines for party liability based on materials from the International Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).  All participants in the publication process should carefully read them and comply with them at all stages of publication.

Section II.  Principles of liability of the parties

General principles of liability

Plagiarism and copyright: all parties commit themselves to resist all forms of plagiarism and copyright infringement in any form.

Confidentiality: all parties (editors, authors, reviewers) are obligated to observe the principle of confidentiality at all stages of interaction: no disclosing personal data, no sending them to third parties and not to use for personal mercenary interests.

Responsibility of the editors (chief editor)

1.1 The chief editor is responsible for all materials published in the Journal. 

1.2 The chief editor is committed to following the principles:

• Ensure that the interests of readers and authors are respected;
• Promote the development and improvement of the Journal;
• Take all necessary measures to ensure the high quality of published materials
• Protect freedom of opinion;
• Prevent commercial interests from compromising intellectual and ethical standards;
• Prevent If possible the occurrence of a conflict of interest between participants in the publication process, and, if necessary, settles the conflict in accordance with the interests of the scientific community;
•  Readiness to publish corrections, clarifications, rebuttals (recall papers) and apologies when necessary.

1.3 The chief editor interacts with the authors on the principles of fairness, courtesy, objectivity, and transparency; he or she is personally responsible for the decision to accept or reject the manuscript of the paper submitted to the editorial office.

1.4 The chief editor should determine within 2 months from the day of the registration of a manuscript, the further process of the received manuscript.

1.5 The decision to accept the paper is based solely on an assessment of the significance, originality (novelty), reliability, consistency and clarity of the presentation of the material, the availability of reviewers' opinions.  The editor evaluates the intellectual content of the manuscripts regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, origin, and citizenship, political or other preferences of the Authors.

1.6 The editors operate double- blind peer review and provide expert assessment by an uninterested, independent, competent expert in the relevant area. (See the Review section).

1.7 In the case of objective claims, complaints or conflicts, the editorial office undertakes to take all possible measures to protect the parties whose rights have been infringed, to argue their position, as well as  publish a revised version and apologize to the authors, readers and the scientific community , as appropriate.

See more details:

Responsible research publication: international standards for editors

Responsibility of the authors

3.1 Researchers are required to ensure that their publications are fair, clear, accurate, complete and balanced; they should not allow the presentation of material misleading readers, selective or ambiguous presentation of facts.

3.2 The work should contain significant new results and appropriately reflect the use by the author of scientific works of his predecessors and colleagues.  Authors should not paraphrase, partially copy their / others' works or cite text without reference.  Plagiarism in all its manifestations is unacceptable.  Authors should not copy from other publications references to works with which they themselves have not familiarized themselves.

3.3 Private data should not be used or presented without the explicit written permission of the source.  Information obtained from confidential sources, such as the evaluation of manuscripts or the provision of grants, should not be used without a written permission of the Authors of work related to confidential sources.

3.5 The published research should be qualitatively and thoroughly executed, and all the data presented in the paper should be reliable, objective and not falsified.  The authors are collectively responsible for all the data provided in the paper (facts, results, conclusions, theories, hypotheses, etc.) within the framework of the relevant legislation of the Russian Federation.

3.6 Authors should ensure that the paper is original and has not previously been published or submitted to another edition at the same time.

1.7         Authors should objectively assess the contribution of each of them to the work, avoiding false reporting of authorship. 

3.8 If an author  has a sponsor of project, author should mention the appropriate information on the Research sponsors should not have the right to veto the publication of results that are negative for their products or designs.

3.9. Authors should report about any conflicts of interest (with a publisher, sponsor, co-author, printing house, etc.)

3.10 In case of inaccuracies, errors or signs of violation of publication ethics, authors  should inform the editorial office as soon as possible.

3.11 The published study should be conducted in accordance with ethical and legal standards.  If people are involved in experiments, the authors should obtain appropriate approvals, licenses, and registrations in advance, in compliance with applicable laws and regulations (British Educational Research Association ethical guidelines).

3.12 Mock-ups of the paper should be submitted to the editorial office in accordance with the Rules for Manuscript Design.

3.13 All authors are required to disclose in their manuscripts financial or other existing conflicts of interest that may be perceived as having an impact on the results or conclusions presented in the work.

Reviewers Responsibility

3.13 The reviewer should conduct an expert assessment of the paper in accordance with the "Review Procedure" and in the interests of the scientific community and society as a whole.

3.14 The reviewer should comply with the following ethical responsibilities:

• review confidentiality
• constructive criticism
• competence
• impartiality and honesty
• efficiency (compliance with deadlines)
• disclosure of conflicts of interest

3.15 The reviewer should refuse to prepare a review in the following cases: disagreement with the review rules of the Journal, lack of competence, inability to adhere to the terms / conditions of the review; if he or she has a personal interest or any conflicts of interest with the authors of the paper, as well as due to other  moral / ethical contradictions.  The reviewer should provide the editors with accurate and truthful information about their personal and professional knowledge and review experience.

3.16 The reviewer must give only an objective impartial assessment, preventing any influence on the content of the review (the origin of the manuscript, nationality, religious affiliation, political or other views of the author, as well as commercial considerations).  Personal criticism and personal comments on the author are not acceptable.  The review should be objective and constructive, pursuing the main goal to help authors improve their manuscript.  The assessment and conclusion of the reviewer should be reasonable substantiated and confirmed by relevant references.

3.17 The unpublished manuscript received by the reviewer is confidential: the reviewer agrees not to disclose the information entrusted to him or her  to third parties and not to use it for personal gain, as well as for benefit of other persons or organizations.

Section III.  Unfair practices.

Submitted papers found to include false or fabricated data prior to publication will be returned to the author immediately with a request for an explanation. If no explanation is received or if the explanation provided is considered unsatisfactory, the Journal will notify the authors’ institution or superior. The Journal may also refuse to accept further submissions from the author for a defined period.

Examples of data falsification or fabrication include:

1. Fabrication / falsification of scientific results.

2. Plagiarism of data, omission of selected data; making-up data sets; ideas or fragments of papers (compilation); cropping of gels/images to change context

3. Intentional selections or suppression of the results in the publication, when these results are relevant to the conclusions.

4. False use of statistical or other methods.

5. Intentional or careless negligence in concealing the details of a technique.

6. False reporting of authorship (attributed honorary authorship, invisible authorship (omission of researchers’ names).

7. False presentation of the results of other researchers (fictitious citation).

8. Inadmissible repetition of publications (self-plagiarism and duplicate publications).

9. Inappropriate handling with research objects.

10. Offer of agency services: correspondence with the editors and revision of papers on behalf of the author.

11. Submission by editors of the texts of papers to other Journals without the consent of the authors.

12. Revealing the materials of the authors to third parties by editors or reviewers.

13. Violation of the standards of objectivity when reviewing and / or when deciding on publication.

14. All kinds of manipulations with citation (conspiracies to artificially increase citation, artificially increase scientometrics indices, excessive self-citation and friendly citation).

15. Fan distribution of the same paper text to several scientific Journals.

16. Image manipulation

Ethics Violation (Complaint) Procedures

1. Identification of ethical violations

1.1.  A breach of publication ethics can be detected and brought to the attention of  the editor or publisher by any person at any time.

1.2.  Ethics violations may include, but are not limited to, the examples given in the section on publication ethics.

1.3. Whoever informs the editor or publisher of such behavior, he or she should provide information or evidence to initiate an investigation.  All applications should be considered seriously until a final decision or conclusion.

2. Investigation

2.1.The initial decision should  be made by the editor, who should consult with the publishers.

2.2. All necessary data should be collected, but the dissemination of information beyond those who should be aware of it, should be avoided.

3. Minor violations

3.1. Minor violations may be considered third parties. In any case, the author should be given the opportunity to answer any allegations.

4. Serious violations

4.1. Serious violations may require the employer notification.

The editor in coordination with the publisher or members of the scientific community, should decide on the advisability of informing the employer either by independent assessment of the available data, or by further consulting with a limited number of experts.

5. Implications (in the terms of severity; can be applied both individually and collectively)

5.1. Informing the author or reviewer about misunderstandings or violations of publication standards.

5.2. A warning letter to the author or reviewer revealing facts of ethical violation and warning of possible consequences.

5.3. The official publication of the identified violations on the site.

5.4. Publication of an editorial text detailing the violations.

5.5. A formal letter to the head of the department, where the author or reviewer works.

5.6. Formal withdrawal of a paper from the Journal.  Informing the head of the department in which the author or reviewer works, as well as international database indexing Journals and readers of the Journal.

5.7. A ban on the publication of this author (attraction of this reviewer) for a certain period.

5.8. Report on an incident  to a professional organization or to a higher authority for the purpose to further investigate and take measures.

6. Retraction of publication

6.1 Retraction of a paper is a mechanism for correcting published information and alerting readers to publications containing such serious flaws or erroneous data that cannot be trusted.  Data inaccuracy may result from good faith or deliberate misconduct.  Testimonials are also used to warn readers about duplicate publications (that is, when authors present the same data in several publications), plagiarism, and concealment of important conflicts of interest that may affect the interpretation of the data or recommendations for their use.

6.2. Retraction of a publication is conducted in the following cases:

• there is clear evidence of the inaccuracy of the published information that arose either as a result of conscious actions (for example, falsification of data), or due to bona fide errors (for example, errors in calculations or experiments);
• the findings were previously published in another publication, and there are no appropriate references, permissions or justifications for the need for re-publication (i.e., cases of duplicate publication);
• Incorrect borrowing (plagiarism);
• unethical research is detected;
• serious errors were found in the work (for example, incorrect interpretation of the results), which casts doubt on its scientific value;
• the composition of the authors is incorrect (there is no one who deserves to be an author; persons who do not meet the criteria for authorship are included);
• latent conflict of interest (and other violations of publication ethics);
• papers are republished without the consent of the author;
• The paper was not peer-reviewed.

6.3. Published papers only are subject to retract.

6.4 If only a small part of the paper (for example, several sentences) is plagiarized, the editors should decide whether it would be better for the readers (and for the author of the work) to amend a paper (provide correct links to the source ) than review the paper in full.

6.5. The paper is retracted at the official request of the editorial board of the Journal or author.

6.6. If the author / group of authors finds it necessary to retract the paper, they turn to the editorial office with reasonable explaining the reason for their decision.  If the editors agree to retract the paper, then the text will be revised independently.

6.7. If the editorial board decides to retract the text because of its examination or the information received by the editorial office, it informs the authors / authors about their decision. The author (lead author in the case of collective authorship) gets acquainted with the wording justifying the retraction of the paper.

6.8. Having decided to retract the paper, the editors draw up a notice of retraction, mentioning the reason for the retract (in the case of plagiarism sources of borrowing should be specified) and the date of retraction.  The notice also specifies the person retracting the paper.  Notifications are published in electronic and print versions of the Journal.  The title of the notice of retraction includes the names of the authors and the title of the retracted paper.

6.9. The retracted paper remains on the journal’s website as part of the corresponding issue of the journal, but the word RETRACTED and the retract date are inscribed on the electronic version of the text, the same mark is placed on the paper in the table of contents.

6.10. Retracted papers are not deleted from the archive on the journal website.

6.11. If duplication of a publication is found, the editorial staff discusses the situation and can take one or two ways:

• The text is retracted, at the same time, by all publications that published material received as a result of fan mailing;
• Consensus is reached on one version of the text, which will not be retracted from publication (usually the earliest version).

6.12. If it is impossible to obtain convincing proof of the reliability of the publication, the publisher expresses the doubts, and does not retract the publication immediately.

6.13. Expressions of doubt, like notices of retract, refer to the original publication and contain reasons for expressing doubt.

6.14. If more convincing roof becomes available later, the expression of doubt should be replaced by a notice of retraction (if the paper was determined as inaccurate) or a statement of justification related to the expression of doubt (if the reliability of the paper was proved and the author’s reputation was restored).

Founder

• Saint Petersburg Electrotechnical University

Author fees

Publication in "Discourse" is free of charge for all the authors.

The journal doesn't have any paper processing charges.

The journal doesn't have any paper submission charges.

Revealing materials and Conflict of Interest

Conflict of interest exists when an author’s private interests might be seen as influencing the objectivity of research or experiment, to the point that a reasonable observer might wonder if the individual’s behaviour or judgement was motivated by considerations of his or her competing interests. It is the responsibility of a manuscript’s corresponding author to confirm if co-authors hold any conflict of interest.  The corresponding author may be required to co-ordinate completion of written forms from each co-author and submit these to the editor prior to acceptance.  

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer’s own research without a written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.

Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

Plagiarism detection

"Discourse" operates native russian-language plagiarism detection software Antiplagiat to screen the submissions.

Preprint and postprint Policy

Prior to acceptance and publication in "Discourse", authors may make their submissions available as preprints on personal or public websites.

As part of submission process, authors are required to confirm that the submission has not been previously published, nor has been submitted. After a manuscript has been published in "Discourse" we suggest that the link to the paper on journal's website is used when the paper is shared on personal or public websites. 

Preprint - In the context of Open Access, a preprint is a draft of an academic article or other publication before it has been submitted for peer-review or other quality assurance procedure as part of the publication process. Preprints cover initial and successive drafts of articles, working papers or draft conference papers.

Postprint - The final version of an academic paper or other publication - after it has been peer-reviewed and revised into its final form by the author. As a general term, this covers both the author's final version and the version as published, with formatting and copy-editing changes in place.