Conflict of Interest

A conflict of interest exists when financial, professional, or personal relationships could influence—or appear to influence—a person's judgement about a manuscript. ETERNAL: English Teaching Journal requires all parties in the publication process to disclose any potential conflicts.

1. Authors

• Authors must disclose all financial and non-financial interests related to the work (e.g., funding, employment, consultancies, ownership of the product or material studied, personal relationships).
• All manuscripts must include a Declaration of Conflicting Interests statement before the References. If none, state: "The authors declare no conflict of interest."
• Sources of funding must be stated in the Acknowledgements/Funding section.

2. Reviewers

• Reviewers must decline to review, or inform the editor, if they have a conflict with the authors, institutions, or content of the manuscript (e.g., recent collaboration, same institution, competing work, or personal relationship).
• Reviewers must not use unpublished information from the manuscript for their own advantage.

3. Editors

• Editors do not handle manuscripts in which they have a conflict of interest; such manuscripts are assigned to another editor.
• Manuscripts submitted by members of the editorial team are handled by an independent editor and undergo the same double-blind peer review, without involvement of the submitting editor in any decision.

4. Undisclosed conflicts

Failure to disclose a relevant conflict of interest may result in rejection of the manuscript or, after publication, a correction or retraction, in line with COPE guidance.