Babble follows the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in its principles of publication ethics. Every article published in Babble carries a statement that research and publication ethics were observed in its preparation.

Authors

• Authors declare that the article is original, has not been published elsewhere and is not under review elsewhere.
• Everyone who made a substantial contribution to the article is listed as an author; those whose contribution does not amount to authorship are named in the acknowledgements. In articles with more than one author, the contribution of each author is stated in the declarations at the end of the article.
• Authors obtain permission to publish the images and other third-party material used in the article, and give the caption and rights holder of every image.
• Authors disclose any conflicts of interest and any funding or support for the work in the declarations at the end of the article.
• An author who discovers a significant error in a published article informs the editor, who publishes a correction or a retraction notice where necessary.

Ethics Committee Approval

Ethics committee approval is required for:

• all qualitative or quantitative research in which data are collected from participants through questionnaires, interviews, focus groups, observation, experiments or other interview techniques;
• research that uses humans or animals (including material and data) for experimental or other scientific purposes;
• clinical research on humans and research on animals;
• retrospective studies that require approval under personal data protection legislation.

For research with ethics committee approval, the name of the committee and the date and number of its decision are given in the methods section and on the first or last page of the article; for research that does not require approval, this is stated explicitly in the article. Permission is obtained from the owners for the use of scales, questionnaires and photographs belonging to others, and this is stated in the article.

Reviewers

• Reviewers treat the article sent to them as a confidential document, do not share its content with others and do not use it in their own work.
• Reviewers who have a conflict of interest with the author decline the review and inform the editor.
• Reviews must be objective, reasoned and constructive.

Editors

• Editors assess articles solely on their scholarly merit and their fit with the scope of the journal; the identity, institution, nationality, beliefs or gender of the authors do not influence their decisions.
• Editors transfer the review of an article to another editor when they have a conflict of interest with its authors, and do not handle articles by people whom they supervise, with whom they have co-authored, or with whom they work on the same research project.
• Members of the Editorial Board may submit articles to Babble as authors. The review of such an article is conducted by an editor who has no connection with the author, or by a member of the Advisory Board; an editor who is an author has no access to the process of their own article at any stage.
• No more than a quarter of the articles published in a volume may have an editor, board member or reviewer of Babble among their authors.

Use of Artificial Intelligence

• AI tools cannot be listed as authors; the authors are responsible for the content and accuracy of the article.
• Where generative AI tools were used in preparing, translating or language-editing the text, the tool and the purpose of its use are stated in the declarations at the end of the article.
• AI-generated images are not used unless they are the subject of the article; where they are used, this is stated in the caption.
• For reasons of confidentiality, reviewers and editors do not upload the articles they assess, or their reports, to generative AI tools.

Plagiarism

Every submission is run through similarity-checking software at the pre-review stage, and the report is interpreted by the editor. Submissions containing text or images taken without acknowledgement are not considered. Where plagiarism, fabrication or falsification of data, or duplicate publication is suspected, editors follow the COPE flowcharts.

Corrections, Retractions and Expressions of Concern

Where an error that affects the findings is found in a published article, a correction is published. Where plagiarism, fabrication, duplicate publication or another serious breach of ethics is established, the article is retracted in accordance with the COPE retraction guidelines; a retracted article remains on the site together with the retraction notice. While an investigation is under way, an expression of concern may be published.

Appeals and Complaints

• Authors may appeal a decision with a reasoned letter within thirty days of being notified of it. The appeal is examined by an editor who took no part in the original decision, or by a member of the Advisory Board, and the author is informed of the outcome.
• Complaints about the journal on ethical grounds are sent to the ethics editor through the address on the Contact page and are examined according to the COPE guidelines.