Guidelines for authors in Croatian scholarly journals
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/IDD-07-2017-0055 |
| Date | 19 February 2018 |
| Published date | 19 February 2018 |
| Pages | 38-44 |
| Author | Ivana Hebrang Grgić,Lorena Čačković |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Library & information services,Lending,Document delivery,Collection building & management,Stock revision,Consortia |
Guidelines for authors in Croatian
scholarly journals
Ivana Hebrang Grgi
cand Lorena
Ca
ckovi
c
Department of Information and Communication Sciences, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
Purpose –This paper aims to compare guidelines for authors in Croatian scholarly journals regarding six scien tificfields (according to Croatian
classification) and to show the representation of technical and ethical issues that are explained in guidelines for authors.
Design/methodology/approach –The aim of the research is to identify elements that are included in guidelines for authors in Croatian scholarly
journals from all scientificfields. Fourteen parameters for 200 journals were analyzed (all the journals that had published at least one 2016 issue by
the end of February 2017).
Findings –The parameter that is explained in the most journals is the length of the manuscript (91.5 per cent). The lowest number of journals
explains Open Researcher and Contributor ID (1.5 per cent). The highest percentage of jo urnals that explain plagiarism is in the field of natural
sciences (44 per cent). As compared to the results of previous researches, there is an increase in the number of ethical questions mentioned in the
guidelines for authors of Croatian scholarly journals.
Practical implications –This paper provides recommendations and suggestions that could help journal editors make guidelines for authors more
informative. That could help in advancing editorial process (e.g. peer review process) and in avo iding misconducts (e.g. plagiarism or false
attribution of authorship).
Originality/value –This paper is the first detailed content analysis of guidelines for authors in all Croatian scholarly journals.
Keywords Ethics, Croatia, Guidelines, Journal publishing, Authorship, Scholarly journal
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Scientific journals have existed since 1665 and have
immediately been accepted as the fastest and most reliable
means of scientific communication. There were several
important reasons for launching the first journals (Journal des
Sçavants in Paris and Philosophical Transactions in London):
faster and broader dissemination of research results and ideas,
ensuring protection of intellectual property, encouraging
discussion, evaluating and archiving texts. Scholarly
communication has the same purpose today –it is a system
used by researchers and scholars to create, evaluate,
disseminate and preserve their work within the scientific
community, most often by formal channels such as scholarly
journals (ACRL, 2003). Today, there are a large number of
journals, and the processof editing has become demanding and
time-consuming. The demanding editing process is the result
of high volume of submitted manuscripts, a large amount of
information that needs to be evaluated, the immense quantity
of journals, the increasingnumber of research being conducted,
increasingly developed scientificfields and increasingly time-
consuming peer-reviewprocess.
For the acceptance procedure to be easier, quickerand more
effective, every journal has to have documents that help
authors, editors and peer-reviewers by giving them guidelines
for writing, editi ng and reviewing manuscrip ts. Guidelines for
authors should be as precise as possibl e in describing the way
manuscripts should be formatted and how they are accepted.
The author should be able to find details such as the language
of the manuscript a nd abstract, the pe rmitted length of
the manuscript, the way to format the manuscript and the
abstract, as well as how to form the structure of the entire
manuscript. In addit ion, authors should fin d information on
the following: the re quired ethical principles; re ference styles;
the peer-review process; how to submit the manuscript to the
editorial board; an d which categories a re assigned to the
accepted manuscrip ts. This paper will present the re sult of an
analysis of guideli nes for authors in C roatian scholarly
journals.
Because of all the characteristics of the peripheral scientific
community, e.g. “small”language and problems of countries in
transition, ittakes a lot of effort for Croatian journals to become
part of global trends and communication channels. Editors of
journals that publish in the Croatian language meet problems
of narrow scientificfields where it is not always possible to
ensure objectivity. On the other hand, journals want to ensure
international visibility, but the language is a serious limitation.
The task of making theirjournals visible in a global community
is easier for journals that publish in the English language.
However, they too have some limitations, e.g. unrecognized
quality, small number of readers and funding problems. A
positive aspect of Croatian scholarly journals is that almost all
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on
Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/2398-6247.htm
Information Discovery and Delivery
46/1 (2018) 38–44
© Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 2398-6247]
[DOI 10.1108/IDD-07-2017-0055]
Received 14 July 2017
Revised 20 November 2017
Accepted 20 November 2017
38
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