Retraction, Withdrawal, and Correction (R-W-C) Policy

Research Integrity & Scholarly Record

Post-Publication Amendments Policy

Retractions, Withdrawals, Expressions of Concern, and Corrections

Post-publication amendment policy

Sinergi International Journal of Islamic Studies is committed to maintaining the integrity, transparency, accuracy, and reliability of the scholarly record. Post-publication amendments are handled in accordance with recognized publication-ethics standards, including COPE and relevant NISO recommendations.

Notices relating to published articles are maintained as part of the scholarly record and, where applicable, remain publicly accessible, linked, and indexable.

RETRACTION WITHDRAWAL CONCERN CORRECTION
1. Retractions

A retraction may be issued when published findings are considered unreliable, invalid, or seriously compromised by error, misconduct, methodological failure, or serious research-integrity concerns.

  • Fabrication, falsification, major analytical error, or serious miscalculation;
  • Manipulated, fabricated, or unreliable qualitative, quantitative, historical, textual, or archival data;
  • Redundant or duplicate publication;
  • Plagiarism, manipulated authorship, or other serious ethical violations;
  • Research involving human participants conducted without required ethical approval or informed consent where applicable;
  • Serious misrepresentation or inappropriate manipulation of Qur'anic texts, Hadith sources, historical records, archival materials, translations, or other scholarly evidence;
  • Manipulation of peer review or other publication processes; or
  • Major methodological or interpretive errors that invalidate the principal findings.

Retraction notices identify the affected article, explain the reason factually, remain publicly available, and are linked to the original article.

2. Withdrawals

Withdrawal is generally limited to manuscripts that have not yet become the final Version of Record (VoR).

Before Publication

An accepted but unpublished manuscript may be withdrawn in exceptional circumstances, such as duplicate submission, major errors that invalidate the results or interpretation, serious research-integrity concerns, or significant ethical or authorship violations.

After Publication

Removal of a Version of Record is strongly discouraged and considered only in exceptional circumstances involving legal requirements, privacy or safety concerns, confidential information, or serious copyright and intellectual-property violations. A withdrawal notice and relevant bibliographic metadata will normally remain available.

3. Expressions of Concern

An Expression of Concern may be issued when serious questions have been raised about a published article but sufficient evidence for a correction or retraction is not yet available. This may include unresolved concerns about source authenticity, research data, participant ethics, translations, historical documentation, textual interpretation, authorship, plagiarism, or peer-review integrity. The notice may later be updated or replaced following the outcome of the investigation.

4. Corrections

Corrections are published when an error affects the accuracy, interpretation, citation, or discoverability of an article but does not invalidate its principal findings.

  • Minor factual, textual, transliteration, translation, numerical, or data-presentation errors;
  • Incorrect author, affiliation, title, DOI, or other metadata;
  • Incorrect references to Qur'anic verses, Hadith sources, classical works, legal texts, archival records, or historical materials that can be corrected without changing the principal findings;
  • Errors in tables, figures, quotations, citations, or bibliographic information;
  • Missing acknowledgments or funding information;
  • Missing or incomplete ethical, data-availability, or conflict-of-interest declarations; or
  • Clarifications needed to prevent significant misunderstanding of the article's scholarly interpretation.

Articles already assigned to an issue normally receive a separate correction notice linked to the original publication. Minor typographical or formatting changes that do not alter meaning or scholarly interpretation generally do not require a formal correction.

Transparency of Amendment Notices

Formal Retraction, Withdrawal, Correction, and Expression of Concern notices will normally identify:

✓ Article title and author(s) ✓ DOI and publication information
✓ Reason for the amendment ✓ Responsible party or issuing authority

References & Governance

This policy is informed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Retraction Guidelines, relevant NISO recommendations for communicating retractions and corrections, and recognized international best practices in research integrity and publication ethics. For Islamic-studies scholarship, amendment decisions may also consider the reliability and accurate representation of Qur'anic texts, Hadith sources, classical literature, historical records, archival materials, translations, legal texts, field data, and other scholarly sources relevant to the published article.

Research Integrity Contact

Concerns regarding research integrity, ethical breaches, source or data-integrity issues, or post-publication amendments should be submitted to [email protected]
Subject: R-W-C Policy Inquiry – [Manuscript ID / DOI]