Declaration on publication ethics

The purpose of this note is to remind all members of the publication process of their responsibility to abide by all the principles of publication ethics, and to illustrate below some important points in our editorial day-to-day practice.

To prevent plagiarism, the journal’s editorial team relies on an anti-plagiarism Plagait software (https://plagiat.pl/).

The declaration of the journal Polish Orthopaedicsregarding the ethical standards and abuses in publishing practice was prepared on the basis of the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) www.publicationethics.org.

The journal follows the rules contained in the "Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing".

Our journal publishes original and peer-reviewed scientific articles, observing ethical editorial and publishing procedures.

Duties of the editor and publisher.

1. The final decision on accepting the work is made by the Editor-in-Chief in agreement with the Editorial Committee.
2. The decision is made on the basis of the content of the work, its truthfulness, non-infringement of copyright and lack of plagiarism.
3. Race, gender, sexual orientation, faith, origin, nationality, or political beliefs of the authors of works submitted for publication in the journal have no impact on their assessment by the Editor-in-Chief and editors of specific departments.
4. Editors maintain the confidentiality of information about the work provided by its authors.
5. Editors qualifying the work for publication are objective in their evaluation. Their personal beliefs as well as professional or institutional connections do not affect the opinion about the eligibility and evaluation of the work. They are also not allowed to use the information contained in the submitted article for their own research purposes without the prior consent of its authors.
6. In the event of a conflict of interest resulting from competition, cooperation or other relationships with any of the authors or institutions related to a given article, the editor-in-chief's duties (the decision regarding publication) are taken over by the editor of the department or another member of the Editorial Committee. Editors are required to disclose any conflict of interest.
7. If the author decides to appeal against the decision not to publish his/her article, the final decision on this matter belongs to the Editor-in-Chief.
8. The entire review process is electronic.
9. The list of reviewers is posted on the journal's website.
10. If the work has been accepted by the Editorial Staff, it is sent to two reviewers according to the established thematic system.
11. The author does not know the names of the reviewers of his/her work.
12. Time for the review –4 weeks.
13. The work after review:
    • if one review is negative and the other positive, the work is sent to a third reviewer;
    • if the work has been rejected by the reviewers, the editors send an e-mail to the author and give the reason for the rejection;
    • if the work has been accepted by the reviewers, but under the conditions of improvement or correction, the editorial office sends back the work with comments to the author, the author should send the corrected work once again;
    • If the work has been positively reviewed without any comments, the editorial staff sends the work for further publishing.

Responsibilities of the author of the submitted work

When submitting the paper, the authors are required to attach the Cover Letter to the manuscript, in which they declare that the work does not infringe upon the copyrights of other individuals and that it has not been published or intended for publication in another journal, and also specify the contribution of individual co-authors to the work.

In the case of graphic elements attached to the manuscript and taken from sources other than their own, the authors are obliged to present the consent of the copyright holder to the re-use of the content. Guidelines for the preparation of work and submission for publication are available on the journal's website in the bookmark For authors

1. The authors, when sending the work to the Editorial Office, declare that they have read the Declaration of the journal Polish Orthopaedics and Traumatology regarding the ethical standards and abuses in the publishing practice.
2. Any form of plagiarism or self-plagiarism is unacceptable.

1. Sending of a manuscript to more than one journals at the same time is considered unethical and results in non-acceptance the work for publication.
2. The copyrights to all citations and materials used in the work are to be acknowledged and respected.
3. The authors of the publication may only be persons who have made a significant contribution to its creation.
4. The authors are obliged to present the results of their work in a fair and honest way. It is unethical and unacceptable to publish untrue or unverified results.

Duties of the reviewers

1. When reviewing the work the reviewers are required to make every effort to reliably and objectively assess the value of the reviewed work.
2. If the reviewer thinks that s/he does not have sufficient qualifications to evaluate a given work, s/he may refrain from preparing the review.
3. The reviewer reviews the work provided to him/her without pay within two weeks of accepting the task.
4. The reviewers are obliged to keep all unpublished works and related materials confidential.
5. The reviewers can refuse to review a work without giving a specific reason.
6. The reviewer and the author of the article should not stay in a close personal (e.g. kinship) or professional (e.g. work-related dependence) relationship. If the reviewer decides that reviewing the work is contrary to his interests, s/he is obliged to refrain from reviewing the work. A conflict of interest may involve issues of competence, finances and cooperation – at the personal, business or institutional level. The reviewer may not use the information contained in the reviewed manuscript for his/her own benefit.
7. If during the evaluation of the work, the abuses against someone else's intellectual property rights have been identified (implicit borrowing), the reviewer's duty is to notify the editor-in-chief who will verify any evidence and then make the final decision as to the publication of the work.
8. The reviewer should identify and indicate to the author all sources and publications that in his/her opinion are relevant and have not been included in the work and cited.
9. The reviewers provide their comments to the managing editors. It is the responsibility of the reviewer to provide detailed comments, also in the case of work that in his/her opinion is not eligible for publication.