Quality Criteria & Ethical Standards
Authors of academic publications are responsible for the content of their work. As a series for young scholars, it is part of the mission of Gender <ed> Thoughts to introduce its authors to the standards of academic quality and research ethics.
Originality and plagiarism
- Manuscripts submitted to Gender<ed> Thoughts must be original and academically sound. Authors must ensure that research, ideas, concepts, or statements from others are appropriately cited.
- Plagiarism in all its forms (e.g. plagiarism of ideas, structural plagiarism, translation plagiarism), in which parts of the work of others are copied or adopted without specifying the source or author, represent a copyright infringement and will not be accepted.
Conflicts of interest
- Authors must disclose any conflicts of interest that could be construed as affecting the results or interpretations in the manuscript in a conflicts of interest declaration (after the main text and before the bibliography, under the heading "Conflicts of Interest"). Conflicts of interest can be of a financial (e.g. employment, consultancy or speaker fees, patent or share ownership) or non-financial (e.g. personal, political or religious interests) nature.
Funding
- If you have been commissioned to conduct research or if you have received financial support for your research, the sponsors/clients must be disclosed in the manuscript, including the funding or reference number of the research project (after the main text and before the bibliography, under the heading "Funding").
Ethical standards
- If the submitted manuscript is based on empirical work on or with human beings (e.g. interview study, observational study, quantitative survey, etc.), a statement confirming the compliance with ethical standards in research must be inserted into the manuscript.
A. The best way to prove this is by referring to an ethical approval letter received from a competent ethics committee. (Please provide the following information after the main text and before the bibliography, under the heading "Ethical Standards": reference number and date of issue of the ethical approval and name of the issuing institution).
Note: How you can apply for ethical approval differs between faculties and universities. Please inquire at your university about the respective procedure. If you are a student, your dissertation or thesis supervisor might have to be involved. At some universities, only the supervisor is entitled to apply.
B. Alternatively, a statement can be included, which confirms that all research on or with human beings has been carried out in accordance with the ethical standards of your discipline. These standards should be named as concretely as possible, e.g. Declaration of Helsinki, ethics code of a professional association etc. (Please insert the statement after the main text and before the bibliography, under the heading “Ethical Standards”).
- When collecting and processing personal data, it must be confirmed that the data has been collected and processed in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). "Personal data" means all private or professional information that relates to an identified or identifiable natural person. (Please insert the confirmation after the main text and before the bibliography, under the heading "Ethical Standards"). In particular, it must be made clear that all persons have given their consent to participate in the study after having been informed beforehand. All details that allow conclusions to be drawn about the identity of individual research participants must be avoided, unless the participants have consented to their names being published.
The editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not meet the above standards. The authors can be held responsible for a false statement or in the case of non-compliance with the aforementioned standards.
Archiving
The Working Paper Series Gender<ed> Thoughts is archived long-term by the German National Library (DNB). All published papers are also available there.