Ethical Guidelines

Editorial Policy and Ethical Guidelines

The Sofia is guided by ethical principles that ensure the best editorial practices for scientific journals, as outlined below.

Editor Responsibilities

Publication Decision: It is the editor's responsibility to determine which submitted articles will be published, following the guidelines established by the Editorial Board, Scientific Committee, and Journal Publishing Office. These guidelines must comply with current laws on defamation, copyright, and plagiarism. The editor may seek advice from the Scientific Committee, Editorial Board, and Journal Publishing Office to support their decisions.

Impartiality and Respect: Manuscripts must be evaluated without any discrimination, regardless of factors such as race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, or political views of the authors.

Confidentiality: Neither the editor nor the editorial team shall disclose information about a submitted manuscript except to reviewers and editorial advisors involved in the review process.

Conflict of Interest and Misuse of Information: The editor shall not use unpublished data or content from submitted manuscripts for their own research without the express and documented consent of the authors. Furthermore, they must refrain from evaluating articles where there is a conflict of interest of a competitive, collaborative, or associative nature with the authors, companies, or institutions involved.

Ethics and Investigations: In cases of ethical complaints related to submitted manuscripts or already published articles, the editor must take appropriate measures to investigate and resolve the issue.

Reviewer Responsibilities

Support for Editorial Decisions: Reviewer feedback contributes to the editor's decision-making and may also help authors improve their articles through the suggestions provided.

Commitment to Deadlines: If a reviewer does not feel qualified to review an article or cannot do so in a timely manner, they must immediately notify the editor.

Confidentiality: Manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents and may not be shared or discussed with third parties.

Objectivity and Rigor: Reviews must be conducted impartially, based on well-founded arguments, and expressed clearly.

Acknowledgment of Sources: Reviewers should identify and point out the absence of references to relevant works in the scientific literature. If they identify substantial similarities between the manuscript under review and other already published articles, they must inform the editor.

Conflict of Interest and Use of Information: Information obtained during the review of manuscripts must be kept confidential and not used for personal benefit. Furthermore, reviewers shall not evaluate articles when there is any conflict of interest, whether due to personal, institutional, or professional ties with the authors or organizations involved.

Author Responsibilities

Accuracy and Transparency: Authors must present a faithful account of the research conducted, including accurate data and an objective analysis of the results. The article must contain sufficient details and references to allow other researchers to replicate the study. Any intentional distortion of facts will be considered unethical and unacceptable.

Originality and Respect for Intellectual Property: Authors must ensure that their work is original and, when using ideas or excerpts from other studies, must provide appropriate citations. Plagiarism, in any form, is unacceptable.

Duplicate or Redundant Publication: The same article shall not be submitted simultaneously to more than one journal nor published more than once, as this constitutes unethical conduct.

Citation of Sources: Acknowledging the work of other researchers is essential. All references relevant to the study must be properly cited. Information obtained from third parties, such as in private conversations or correspondence, may only be used with the express permission of those involved.

Authorship Criteria: Only those who contributed significantly to the development of the study should be recognized as authors. Contributors who played specific roles should be mentioned as such. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all co-authors have approved the final version of the article and consented to its submission for publication.

Conflict of Interest and Funding: Any financial or other ties that may have influenced the research must be disclosed in the manuscript. Additionally, all sources of funding for the study must be reported.

Correction of Errors: If an author identifies a significant flaw in their published article, they must immediately notify the editor and cooperate to correct the error.

Duties of the Journal Publishing Office

The Revista Sofia is committed to ensuring that advertising, reprints, or any other sources of commercial revenue do not impact or influence editorial decisions.
Our articles undergo peer review to ensure the quality of scientific publications. This journal uses Turnitin as plagiarism detection software for all articles, prior to the start of the editorial workflow.
Research involving human beings or animals must be accompanied by a copy of the approval from the relevant ethics committee.

Below are the main guidelines from international and national organizations that serve as references for the principles and good editorial practices observed by Revista Sofia:

Guia de Boas Práticas para o Fortalecimento da Ética na Publicação Científica: https://wp.scielo.org/wp-content/uploads/Guia-de-Boas-Praticas-para-o-Fortalecimento-da-Etica-na-Publicacao-Cientifica.pdf
SciELO. Guide to promoting the opening, transparency, and reproducibility of research published by SciELO journals: https://wp.scielo.org/wp-content/uploads/Guia_TOP_en.pdf
Principles of Transparency and Good Practice in Academic Publications recommended by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE): www.publicationethics.org
Relatório da Comissão de Integridade de Pesquisa do CNPq: https://www.gov.br/cnpq/pt-br/composicao/comissao-de-integridade/relatorio-comissao--integridade-do-cnpq.pdf
FAPESP. Code of good scientific practice: https://fapesp.br/boaspraticas/2014/FAPESP-Code_of_Good_Scientific_Practice.pdf

Open Access Policy

The Revista Sofia offers immediate free access to its content, following the principle that making scientific knowledge freely available to the public promotes greater democratization of knowledge.

All works are published under the Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY).

The publication, storage, and indexing policy of articles in national and international repositories will be carried out under the following conditions:

Authors grant the journal the right to publish their original works, licensed under Creative Commons.
Authors authorize the storage of the post-print, i.e., the version of the article effectively published in PDF format; storage in repositories occurs immediately after publication.
Authors are permitted to distribute and publish their works (on websites, repositories, or as book chapters) with due acknowledgment of the Revista Sofia as their original publication.

Open Science at Revista Sofia

The Revista Sofia fully adopts the principles of Open Science, recognizing its innovative impact on contemporary scientific research. This approach promotes the free and accessible dissemination of knowledge, ensuring that publications, data, methodologies, and computational processes are available to all.

We believe that the results of publicly funded research should be widely shared, while always respecting ethical, privacy, and intellectual protection guidelines. In line with the concept of "Open Science by Design" from the American Academy of Sciences, the Revista Sofia supports Open Access publication, as well as the availability of Open Data and Open Computational Processes in public repositories. Through this, we seek to stimulate scientific collaboration and drive advances across various fields of knowledge, with a special emphasis on Philosophy.

We also promote transparency from the early stages of research, encouraging authors not only to disseminate their studies but also to make accessible all the resources that underpin their discoveries. In doing so, we contribute to innovation and the advancement of science, benefiting both the academic community and society at large.

Preprints

The Revista Sofia endorses Open Science practices in its editorial guidelines. As part of this commitment, it accepts for review manuscripts previously deposited in preprint servers (such as SciELO Data, Preprints, among others) and requires that research data be cited, referenced, and transparently declared, and encourages the peer review process.

Conflict of Interest

Authors, Reviewers, and Editors must disclose any conflicts of interest that may influence the submitted work or the peer review process. Conflicts of interest may be of a financial, commercial, legal, professional, or personal nature.

Allegations of Misconduct

The Revista Sofia commits to following the FAPESP guidelines for investigating scientific misconduct. As editors-in-chief, we strictly adhere to the procedures established in the FAPESP document, available HERE, and also rely on the guidance provided by the COPE flowcharts.

This entails the responsibility to conduct thorough and impartial investigations, ensuring the ethical integrity of research. By adopting these guidelines, we aim to preserve the credibility and positive impact of scientific production, promoting transparency and strengthening trust within the academic community.

Plagiarism and Overlapping Publications Policy

The Revista Sofia uses the Turnitin plagiarism detection software (with a license funded by UFES) to verify the originality of manuscripts. The following practices are considered unacceptable:

Plagiarism: Presenting the work of others as one's own.
Redundant/Overlapping Publication: Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal simultaneously or publishing substantially similar work in more than one journal without proper reference.