Instructions to Authors
Submission of Manuscripts
When submitting a manuscript, authors warrant that the manuscript represents their original contribution that has not been published elsewhere, that it is not under consideration for publication with another publisher or within another publication, that the publication has been approved by all co-authors (if there are any) and, tacitly or explicitly, by the competent bodies of the institution where the research has been conducted.
The Journal’s Policy – Scientific and Ethical Integrity (PDF)
Authors bear full responsibility for the content of submitted manuscripts and have to obtain permission for data publication from all parties involved in the research.
Authors who wish to include in their paper figures or extracts of text that have already been published are obliged to obtain the copyright holders’ consent and to provide evidence, when submitting their work, that such permission has been granted. The material for which such evidence is not provided shall be deemed an original work of the author.
Authors warrant that they have listed as authors only those persons who have significantly contributed to the content of the manuscript, and that all persons who have significantly contributed to the content of the manuscript have been listed as authors.
Upon receipt, manuscripts go through a preliminary check by the editorial board so as to determine whether they meet basic criteria and standards. In addition, the paper is checked for plagiarism.
Authors shall be informed of the receipt of the manuscript by e-mail. Only the manuscripts prepared in accordance with the instructions will be sent for review.
Otherwise, the manuscript will be returned to the authors, together with remarks and comments.
Instructions for Manuscript Preparation
Authors are required to adhere to the instructions for the preparation of papers. Manuscripts which fail to follow the instructions will be rejected without review.
The editorial board accepts texts in Serbian (Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin …) and English. Papers are accepted in electronic form only.
Manuscripts should be sent in “.doc” format to one of the two following addresses:
The whole paper and the abstract, including an English translation of the abstract, are always proofread.
The manuscript should contain the title, names of authors and institutions they work in, abstract, keywords, main text, conclusion, literature cited and reference list. Affiliation, abstract and keywords should be submitted in English unless the paper has already been written in this language.
Positions of tables should be marked in the text (tables should not be incorporated into the manuscript file, but submitted as separate files in appropriate formats).
Manuscripts should be written in Microsoft Office Word, Times New Roman, 12 points, and include at least 28,800 characters without spaces, and a maximum of 57,600 characters without spaces.
The title should be clear and not too long.
If the paper has been written by two or more authors, the names and contact information (email addresses) should be provided for each author individually. E-mail addresses are entered in the footnote.
Abstract should not be fewer than 100 and not more than 300 words. It should contain a brief review of the methods and the most important results of the work, so that it can be used when indexing in referential periodicals and databases. The abstract should not specify references. The abstract is to be submitted in both the language which the paper has been written in and English.
Keywords (concepts, geographic locations, results) are listed in a separate line at the end of the abstract and contain 5 to 10 words. Keywords must be relevant to the topic and content of the paper. A good keyword selection is a prerequisite for a proper indexing of the paper in referential periodicals and databases. Keywords should be submitted in both the language the paper has been written in and English.
References are listed in the language in which they are published. The list of references should include only the works cited in the text. Foreign names (except in bibliographic units) are phonetically transcribed in accordance with spelling rules of the language in which the paper has been written, but when written in brackets, their original form should be used. The names of geographical and similar terms are also phonetically transcribed without giving their original names in brackets.
Quoting
In writing the paper for the Kom: Journal of Religious Sciences, authors are required to comply with the following rules, mainly related to quotation. Bibliographical references should be quoted in accordance to Harvard Style Manual. The appropriate quoting of most common bibliographical references is as follows:
Books:
In the reference list:
Last name, name, publishing year in brackets, title, the place of publishing, the publisher.
Example: Nasr, Seyyed Hossein (2006), Islamic Philosophy from Its Origin to the Present, New York, Suny Press.
In the text:
Last name of the author in brackets, publishing year, colon, page.
Example: (Nasr 2006: 105)
In the footnote:
Last name of the author, publishing year, colon, page. In the footnote, books are quoted solely in abbreviated form.
Example: Nasr 2006: 105.
Articles:
In the reference list:
Last name, name, publishing year in brackets, text title in quotes, journal title in italics, volume of the journal, the volume number in brackets if the pagination is not uniform for the whole volume, colon and the number of the page.
Example: Hinić, Darko (2012), „Evaluacija Skale poremećaja upotrebe interneta (PUI)”, Psihologija 45: 311–325. Žunjić, Slobodan (2011), „Logički dijagrami u srpskim srednjovekovnim rukopisima”, Theoria 54 (4): 127–160.
In the text:
Last name of the author in brackets, publishing year, colon, page.
Example: (Hinić 2012: 321) (Žunić 2011: 133)
In the footnote:
Last name of the author, publishing year, colon, page. Abbreviations such are “vol.”, “no.”, “pg.” etc. are not to be used. In footnotes, articles are to be quoted solely abbreviated.
Example: Hinić 2012: 321. Žunjić 2011: 133.
Anthologies:
In the reference list:
Last name and the name of editor(s), abbreviation “ed.” in brackets, publishing year in brackets, title, publisher and the page if needed.
Example: Esposito, John (ed.) (1999), The Oxford History of Islam, Oxford University Press.
In the text:
Last name of the author in brackets, publishing year, colon, page number.
Example: (Esposito 1999: 151)
In the footnote:
Last name of the author, publishing year, colon, page number. In footnotes, collections are to be quoted solely abbreviated.
Example: Esposito 1999: 151.
Texts from anthologies:
In the reference list:
Last name and name of the author, publishing year in brackets, text title in quotation, preposition “in” (in collection), name and last name of collection’s editor, “ed.” In brackets, collection title in italics, place of publishing, publisher, colon and the page number (if needed).
Example: Karčić, Fikret (1990), „Opšti pogled na pravo u islamu, njegov istorijski razvoj, teorijske i praktične mogućnosti reforme”, in J. Ramić (ed.), Zbornik radova Islamskog teološkog fakulteta u Sarajevu, Sarajevo, Islamski teološki fakultet: 7–19.
In the text:
Last name of the author in brackets, publishing year, colon, page number.
Example: (Karčić 1990: 15)
In the footnote:
Last name of the author, publishing year, colon, page number. Abbreviation “pg.” is to be written solely in the reference list.
Example: Karčić 1990: 15.
Newspaper articles:
In the reference list:
Last name, name, publishing year in brackets, article title in quotations, name of the newspaper in italics, date, page number.
Example: Andrić, Vesna (2012), „Jedanaest godina od uvođenja veronauke u državne škole; rezultati nepoznati”, Danas, October 20th, pg. 8.
In the text:
Last name of the author in brackets, publishing year, colon, page number.
Example: (Andrić 2012: 8 )
In the footnote:
Last name of the author, publishing year, colon, page number.
Example: Andrić 2012: 8.
Internet:
When quoting internet texts, apart from website information where the text is located, and title of the text, it is necessary to specify the date when the page has been visited, as well as additional details if available (year, chapter, etc.).
In the reference list:
Last name, name, article title in quotations, the word “internet” in brackets, “available on the following address:”, website, the word “visited” in brackets with the precise date.
Example: Plantinga, Alvin, “Theism, Atheism, and Rationality” (internet), available on http://www.noormags.com/view/fa/articlepage/574392 (visited on August 15th 2012).
In the text:
Last name, “internet”.
Example: (Plantinga, internet).
In the footnote:
Last name, “internet”.
Example: Plantinga, internet.
Notes on quoting
In citing from various sources (books, journals, collections, texts from collections, newspaper or internet), there are rare cases of occasional diverging from the usual way of quoting. In the following, we are to mention a few necessary notes related to these cases.
Note 1
If the author’s name is mentioned just before the quotation, it should not be repeated in the same.
Examples:
Books: Nasr (2006: 105) is not of similar views.
Articles: Hinic (2012: 321) claims that… Zunjic (2011: 133) speaks of that in the following way…
Collections: Esposito (1999: 151) does not accept that difference.
Texts from collections: Karčić (1990: 15) does not support the proposed theory.
Newspaper articles: Andrić (2012: 8 ) advocates a critical approach to such exposure. Internet: Plantinga (internet) agreed that from a theistic point of viewpoint, the idea of proper functioning, as applied to us and our cognitive equipment, is not problematic.
Note 2
If the original text is not paged for any reason, the chapter (section) in which the text was published is to be cited. If the text is not divided on chapters, the abbreviation n. p. (no page) should be written.
Examples:
Books: (Jones 2008: sec.1)
(Avicena 1943: n. p)
Newspaper texts: (Kejhan 1945: n. p.)
Note 3
If the text refers to more sources, every one of them should be mentioned. Page number is not necessary if it is related to the source and not to a specific part of it.
Examples:
Books: In the recent years this discussion has been widely known (Sanders 2008; Smith 2009).
Articles: We must point out that this topic is not common in the West (Mo’alemi 2007: 205–214; Nuri 2008: 121–123).
Note 4
If the source A is quoted directly from the source B, the quotation can be used without a detailed reference to original source. This must be done through the source B.
Example:
Jones (cited in Smith 2009) agreed that the experiment failed to confirm this hypothesis.
Or
The experiment failed to confirm this hypothesis (Jones, cited in Smith 2009).
It is important to mention that in this case, the source B, that is the one from which is directly quoted, is to be noted in the reference list.
Example:
Smith, J. (2009), Hypothesis, University of Western Sydney, Penrith.
Note 5
Different publications of the same author are recognized according to the year of publishing. Although, if more than one publication of the same author has been published in the same year, we mark every publication by adding the letters: a, b, c… just after the publishing year. It is important to point out that the same rules are to be applied in the text as well as in the reference list.
Examples:
In the reference list:
Jones 1999a, Forming hypotheses, University of Western Sydney, Penrith.
Jones 1999b, Assessing hypotheses, University of Western Sydney, Penrith.
Jones 2008, Developing hypotheses, University of Western Sydney, Penrith.
If there are more publications of the same author in the reference list, they are marked according to the publishing year.
In the text:
Jones (1999a) stated…
Jones (1999b) stated…
Jones (2008) stated…
Note 6
Authors with the same last names should be mentioned in the text by their name initials.
Example:
J. Brown (1997) and C. Brown (1997).
Note 7
If there is a publication (work) that belongs to more than one author (up to three authors), all the authors are to be mentioned in the text, as well as in the reference list. We point out that only the name initials of the authors are to be marked in the reference list. However, if there are four to six authors, last names of all the authors and their name initials should be given in the reference list, by the order in which they appear in the original. In the text there should be given only the name of the main author, while the others are marked with abbreviations “et al.”. If the source is written by more than seven authors, the same rules as in the previous case are applied for the text. This time, however, only the first six authors should be mentioned in the reference list, while the others are marked with “et al.”. If the text has no specific authors (such are dictionaries, or some encyclopaedias which are not listed by name) only the title of the text is to be given. Such a case, if the work has a longer title, it should be written in full only when first mentioned, while every following time it may be written in the abbreviated form.
Examples:
In the reference list (two to three authors):
Schneider, Z., Whitehead, D. & Elliott, D. (2007), Nursing and Midwifery Research: Methods and Appraisal for EvidenceBased Practice, 3rd ed., Elsevier Australia Marrickville, NSW.
In the reference list (four to six authors):
Belenky, M., Clinchy, B., Goldberger, N. & Tarule, J. (1986), Women’s Ways of Knowing, Basic, New York.
In the reference list (more than seven authors):
Davis, M., Charles, L., Curry, M. J., Shanti, P., Prasad, S., Hewings, A. et al. (2003), Challenging Spatial Norms, Rutledge, London.
In the reference list (with no author):
Guide to Agricultural Meteorological Practices (1981), 2nd ed., Secretariat of the World Meteorological Organization, Geneva.
In the text (two to three authors):
Schneider, Whitehead and Elliot (2007) showed that…
Or
… is demonstrated (Schneider, Whitehead & Elliot 2007).
In the text (four to six authors):
Belenky et al. (1986) explains that knowing is…
Or
… and therefore knowingness can be… (Belenky et al. 1986).
In the text (more than seven authors):
Davis et al. (2003) found…
Or
This has indicated… (Davis et al. 2003).
In the text (with no author):
Guide to Agricultural Meteorological Practices (1981) provides…
Or
This can be shown by… (Guide to Agricultural Meteorological Practices 1981).
Also:
In the Little Encyclopedia of Education (1968) we find…
Or
…he was a national hero (Little Encyclopedia of Education 1968).
Note 8
When the translation of the original is used, the name of the translator should be given in the reference list, while in the text it need not be mentioned.
Example:
In the reference list:
Mantran, R. (ed.) 2002, Istorija Osmanskog carstva, translated from French by Miljkovic Bojanic, E., Clio, Belgrade.
In the text:
Mantran (ed. 2002) states that…
Or
…has the right to freedom of movement (ed. Mantran 2002: 150).
Note 9
If a certain article from an electronic database is quoted, this information should be referred to solely in the reference list. This should be done simply by giving the date of joining the electronic database after the usual quotation style.
Examples:
In the reference list:
Pickard, H. (2013), “Irrational blame”, in Analysis 73 (4): 613–626, joined on November 15th 2013, http://analysis.oxfordjournals.org/content/73/4/613. full.
In the text:
According to Hanna Pickard (2013: 620) …
Or
… (Pickard 2013: 620)
We point out that the same rule is to be applied for the newspaper articles from electronic databases.
The Journal’s Policy –
Scientific and Ethical Integrity
Kom: Journal of Religious Sciences publishes previously unpublished original scientific papers and reviews.
Kom is an open access journal.
Papers can be written in Serbian (Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin…) and English.
From 2012 to 2015 the journal was published twice a year, in May and November.
Since 2016 it has been published three times a year, in May, August and November.
Kom publishes papers in the field of religious philosophy, religious civilization and social sciences, as well as contemporary religious thought.
The Editor’s Obligations
The editor-in-chief of the Journal of Religious Sciences Kom has the final say on what manuscripts will be published. In making the decision the editor is guided by the editorial policy and takes into account legal regulations relating to libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism.
The editor may not have any conflict of interest in connection with submitted manuscripts. Should such a conflict of interest exist, the selection of reviewers and the fate of the manuscript is decided by the Editorial Board.
The editor is obliged to issue a judgment on the manuscript based on its contents, on the basis of impartiality.
The editor may not use unpublished material from the submitted manuscripts for his own research without a written permission from the author.
Authors’ Obligations
Authors warrant that their contribution to the journal is their own original work that has not been previously published and that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.
Authors also warrant that after the publication in Kom the manuscript will not be published in another publication in any language without the copyright holder’s consent.
Authors warrant that the rights of third parties will not be violated and that the publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.
Authors bear full responsibility for the content of submitted manuscripts and have to obtain permission for data publication from all parties involved in the research.
Authors who wish to include in their paper figures or extracts of text that have already been published are obliged to obtain the copyright holders’ consent and to provide evidence, when submitting their paper, that such permission has been granted. The material for which such evidence is not provided shall be deemed an original work of the author.
Authors warrant that they have listed as authors only those persons who have significantly
contributed to the content of the manuscript, and that all persons who have significantly
contributed to the content of the manuscript have been listed as authors.
Authors must adhere to ethical standards relating to scientific research and that of the paper not being plagiarism. Authors warrant that the manuscript does not contain unsubstantiated or unlawful claims and that it does not infringe the rights of others.
In the event that authors realise that there is a significant error in their work after the publication, they are obliged to immediately notify the editor or publisher and to cooperate with them in order to either retract the paper or correct it.
Review
Accepted papers will be reviewed. The aim of the review is to help the editor decide whether a manuscript should be accepted or rejected and to improve the quality of the manuscript through a process of communication with the authors. The author’s identity is known to the reviewers in the reviewing process, whereas the identity of the reviewers before, during and after the evaluation process remains unknown, although all the authors will have a general overview of the group of reviewers from the issue in which their paper has been published.
From the moment of receiving papers reviewers are given 30 days to complete their review.
Reviewers do not receive fees for conducting reviews.
The selection of reviewers is at the editor’s discretion. Reviewers must have relevant knowledge of the area the manuscript deals with and may not come from the same institution as the author. Also, they must not be authors who have recently had joint publications (as co-authors) with any of the authors of the submitted work.
The reviewer must not have a conflict of interest with the authors or research financiers. Should there be a conflict of interest, the reviewer is obliged to immediately notify the editor.
The reviewer who considers himself incompetent in the subject matter or field that the manuscript deals with is obliged to notify the editor.
Reviews must be objective. Comments relating to the personality of the author are considered inappropriate. A reviewer’s report must be clear, evidenced, and appropriately substantiated.
Manuscripts sent to reviewers are deemed confidential documents.
The names of the reviewers are transparently published in every Kom issue.
In the main review stage, the editor sends the submitted paper to the reviewers who are experts in the scientific field that the paper deals with. Peer review form consists of a set of questions to be answered, which directs the reviewers towards the aspects that should be taken into consideration so as to decide on the fate of a manuscript.
In the final part of the form, reviewers must proffer their observations and suggestions on how the submitted manuscript could be improved.
Each paper is reviewed by at least two reviewers. Throughout the process, the reviewers act independently of each other. The reviewers are not familiar with the identities of other reviewers. If the reviewers’ decisions are not the same (accept / reject), the lower mark is taken into account, i.e. the decision to reject the paper. Also, if this be the case, the editor-in-chief may seek the opinion of other reviewers to arrive at a final decision.
The editorial board is required to provide a good quality control of reviews.
If authors should have serious and reasonable objections to the reviews, the editors will check whether the review is objective and whether it meets academic standards. If the objectivity or quality of a review is dubitable, the editor-in-chief will annul the results of that review and assign additional reviewers.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism, or appropriation of other people’s ideas, words or other forms of creative
expression and the representation of them as one’s own original work, is seen as a flagrant breach of scientific ethics. Plagiarism may include copyright infringement, which is punishable by law.
Plagiarism includes the following:
• Literal or almost literal appropriation or deliberate paraphrasing (with the aim of disguising plagiarism) of parts of texts by other authors without a clear pointing to the source or without marking of the copied fragments (e.g. by using quotes);
• copying of tables from someone else’s papers without a proper source citing and / or without the permission for their usage from the author or copyright holders.
Authors are forewarned that every manuscript submitted for publication is checked for plagiarism. Manuscripts in which there are clear indications of plagiarism will be automatically rejected and the authors will be permanently forbidden to publish in the journal.
If it is found that a paper published in Kom is plagiarized, the author will be required to send a written apology to the authors of the original work or the institution that holds the copyright of the paper. Also, the paper will be immediately retracted.
Retraction of Published Papers
Published manuscripts will be available as long as possible in the form in which they were published without any changes. However, it may sometimes happen that a published manuscript has to be retracted. The main reason for the retraction of manuscripts is the need to correct an error so as to preserve the integrity of science.
An article has to be retracted when there is a breach of rights of the publisher, copyright holders or authors, in case of professional ethics codes violation, i.e. if the same manuscript has been submitted to several journals at the same time, in case of false authorship claims, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data and the like. In some cases, a paper can be retracted in order to correct the later detected errors in the manuscript or published paper.
Standards for dealing with retractions are defined by libraries and scholarly bodies, and the same practice has been adopted by Kom: in the electronic version of the original article (the one to be retracted) a HTML link is created with a retraction notice. The retracted article is kept in its original form save for a watermark on the PDF document, indicating on each page that the article is retracted.
Open Access
Kom: Journal of Religious Sciences is available in open access mode.
Articles published in the journal can be downloaded free of charge from the journal website and from other databases sites where the journal is located.
Kom does not charge APC (Article Processing Charge).
Self-Archiving
The journal enables authors to deposit the final, published version of their papers in PDF in an institutional repository and / or non-commercial databases, or to publish them on personal web pages (including profiles on social networks for scientists such as ResearchGate, Academia.edu, etc) and / or on the website of the institution they work for, at any time after the publication in the journal. In doing so, they have to specify the publisher as the copyright holder, and the source of the manuscript, as well as the digital object identifier (DOI) of the published article in a HTML link form.
Copyright
When a manuscript is accepted for publication, authors assign their copyright to the publisher. In the event that the manuscript is not accepted for publication in the journal, authors retain all rights.
The publisher is assigned the following rights to the manuscript, including supplemental materials and all parts, components or elements of the manuscript:
• the right to reproduce and distribute the manuscript in printed form, including printing on request;
• the right to print test copies, reprints and special editions of the manuscript;
• the right to reproduce the manuscript using photomechanical or similar means, including but not limiting itself to copying, and the right to distribute these copies;
• the right to reproduce and distribute the manuscript electronically or optically using all data carriers or storage media, and especially in machine readable / digitized form on data carriers such as hard-disk, CD-ROM, DVD, Blu-Ray Disc (BD), mini-disk, data tapes, and the right to reproduce and distribute the manuscript with these data carriers;
• the right to preserve the manuscript in databases, including online databases, as well as the right to manuscript transfer in all technical systems and modes;
• the right to make the manuscript available to the public or closed user groups on the basis of individual requests for the use on the monitor or other readers (including e-book readers), and in printed form for users, either via the Internet, online service, or through internal or external networks.