Prawo Morskie

Prawo Morskie (Maritime Law) - Guidelines for authors of scientific texts

1. All scientific texts, including (but not limited to) research articles and judicial commentaries (glossa), must include distinct introduction and conclusion sections.

2. The title should be followed by the abstract and keywords. For texts that are not in English, the bibliography should be followed by the title of the text in English, the English keywords and an English abstract at the end.

3. Sources cited in the bibliography should be grouped by type: scholarly literature, legal acts, list of case law, Internet sources.

4. Text volume: min. 20,000 characters, max. 40,000 characters.

5. Page settings: standard margins in MS Word – top, bottom, right and left margins of 2.5 cm.

6. Main text: Times New Roman 12 pt. font, 1.5-line spacing, double-sided alignment. Eliminate any double spaces, commas, and periods, any multiple carriage returns, manually entered new lines, manually entered hyphenations, etc.

7. Paragraphs should begin in the same way in all articles.

8. Spacing between words: always a single space.

9. For the article title and sub-titles on all levels: the font size and type, positioning within the column of text, method of highlighting, numbering (if any), paragraph spacing above and below should be uniform across all articles in accordance with the journal/publication template. In collective works, subtitles of each level should be marked uniformly in all articles by the scientific editor submitting files for typesetting and breaking.

10. Keywords: the placement and form of the keywords in each article should comply with the journal/publication template.

11. Footnotes should be unified and inserted automatically using the MS Word function: "References" → "Insert footnote", without additional space. Please use automatic footnote numbering with superscript Arabic numerals. An exception to this rule is the asterisk (the “*” sign), which can be used in the case of information about the author of an article, in a collective work, or to distinguish between textual (source) and authorial footnotes in edited editions of historical documents.

12. In footnotes referring to sources previously cited, use the Latin abbreviations (op. cit., idem, ibidem, etc.).

13. In the file submitted, all places that will ultimately contain hyperlinks should be so marked – in particular, all ORCID numbers, DOI addresses, and E-MAIL addresses should be properly linked.

14. No space should precede the following characters: period, comma, semicolon, colon, closing parenthesis, closing quotation marks, footnote reference, percent sign, degrees sign.

15. No space should follow the following characters: opening parenthesis, opening quotation marks. In abbreviations such as: p. (page), vol. (volume), etc., there should always be a space after the period.

16. Slashes should not be used with the function of parentheses.

17. Texts in English should use “curly English quotation marks”. Texts in other languages should use the appropriate quotation marks for the language, e.g. Polish texts should use „Polish quotation marks”, French texts should use « French quotation marks », German texts should use „German quotation marks“ etc.

18. For English texts, please use “double curly quotation marks” as the first level, and ‘single curly quotation marks’ for quotations inside quotations. In Polish texts, please use: „these quotation marks” as the first level, followed by «these quotation marks» for quotations inside quotations, and lastly ‘these quotation marks’ for third-level embedded quotations.

19. Do not use a prime character (`) in place of an apostrophe (’).

20. For foreign-language text, please use the correct characters with diacritical marks (e.g. à, á, â, ã, ä).

21. In Polish texts, single-letter words such as a, w, or i that fall at the end of the line do not need to be manually moved to the next line of text – the professional typesetting software will determine their location in the typeset text.

22. Please use highlighting consistently throughout the work. Ordinary highlighting (e.g. the use of italics or underlining) does not require special character styles to be defined.

23. Dates should be written in a standardized form throughout a given work (e.g., 10.03.2021).

24. Numerical expressions indicating a range or approximate magnitude should be consistently separated by a dash throughout the publication (e.g., 1914-1918, 18th-19th century, pp. 5-8, 5-8 percent).

25. Neither a hyphen (-) or n-dash (–) should be used in place of the minus sign (−).

26. The bibliography should be standardized throughout the work according to the article/publication template.

27. Affiliations of individual article authors: standardized and placed in the source file according to the publication template standardized for all authors.


Additional materials attached to the transmitted text

1. All tables, figures, charts, graphs, diagrams, or illustrations should be placed in their intended position within the text, or submitted as a separate file together with a detailed description: article number, table/drawing number, etc., i.e.:
• drawings, charts, diagrams – should be drawn up and submitted as electronic source files in formats from MS Windows environment software (e.g. Word, Excel, Corel 11, Photoshop, etc.), as printouts, or as original drawings of good quality,
• photos – should be submitted as original photographs, digital camera files with the highest possible resolution (tif, jpg), or scans with a minimum resolution of 300 dpi,
• tables – should be placed in the text or a separate document (if there are many), do not use embellishments, background colors.

2. All supplementary materials should be accompanied by descriptions regarding their positioning within the column of text and base size, plus any framing guidelines, captions, titles, numbers. Figures and tables should be placed in the main text, close to the place where they are referenced, or on separate pages in numbered order, while indicating in the text the approximate location where they should appear. Please remember to make drawings according to the following guidelines:
• they must be legible and clear,
• their descriptions should be standardized and adapted to their size,
• drawings should not have a border or a shaded gray background,
• on graphs, drawings and diagrams, textual description should be simplified to the necessary minimum,
• all explanations should be placed in the caption, or in the legend under the figure,
• if possible, drawings, charts, and diagrams should be submitted in the original version as source files,
• all graphics supplied in raster formats (.jpg, .tif, .png) should be sized to achieve a base resolution of 300 dpi, as files with lower resolution will prevent proper printing.

3. Across all articles, a uniform separation of text and descriptions, uniform numbering of drawings, formulas and tables, and a uniform scale of drawings should be maintained.

Template of the article intended for publication in Prawo Morskie (Maritime Law)

Principles of publication ethics

The editors of Prawo Morskie (Maritime Law) strictly adhere to the principles of responsibility and ethics recommended by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for all parties involved in the publication process and take all possible measures against any abuse.


1. Responsibilities of the editorial staff

1.1 Principle of impartiality and fairness. Submitted scientific texts are evaluated on the basis of content only, without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, citizenship or political ideology.

1.2 Publication decisions. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for deciding which of the submitted articles should be published. The decision to accept or reject a scientific text for publication is made by the Editor-in-Chief based on reviews assessing its content, originality, novelty, clarity and relevance to the scope of the journal. In making decisions, the Editor-in-Chief may consult the Scientific Council. The Editor-in-Chief is obliged to comply with applicable laws on defamation, copyright infringement and plagiarism, and to bear full responsibility for decisions regarding the publication of scientific texts.

1.3 Principle of confidentiality. The Editor-in-Chief and the Scientific Council must ensure that all materials submitted for publication remain confidential at the review stage. They must not disclose any information about the submitted manuscript to anyone other than the authors, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisors (e.g., translators), and the publisher.

1.4 Disclosure and conflict of interest. Unpublished articles, excerpts from articles, or materials contained therein may not be used by the editorial staff for their own research without written permission from the authors.

1.5 Maintaining the integrity of the scientific output. The editorial staff will guard the integrity of the published academic output, by issuing corrections, additions and references as necessary. At the same time, the editors will make every effort to detect any inappropriate research or publications. Plagiarism and works based on false data are unacceptable. The Editor-in-Chief should take appropriate action when there are ethical objections with respect to a submitted paper or published article. In justified cases, the editorial staff may publish corrections, clarifications, appeals and apologies.

1.6 Withdrawal of published articles. The Editor-in-Chief of the journal will consider retracting a published scientific text: if there is evidence indicating that the research results presented in it are untrustworthy, if it has been previously published elsewhere without proper reference, permission or justification (cases of redundant publication), if the work constitutes an act of plagiarism or is based on unethical research. The published retraction notice should be linked to the retracted scientific text (naming the title and authors in the title of the retraction), clearly identify the text being retracted, and indicate who is retracting it. Retraction notices should always include a justification for the retraction, stating the reason, in order to distinguish an unintentional error from misconduct. Retracted scientific texts will not be removed from printed copies of the journal or from electronic archives, but their retracted status will be indicated as clearly as possible.


2. Responsibilities of authors

2.1 Standards for publishing research results. Authors of articles presenting the results of original research should provide an accurate description of the work that was performed and an objective discussion of its significance. Baseline data should be accurately presented in the article. The article should provide enough details and references to allow others to verify the claims made. Any fabrication or presentation of false or inaccurate research results constitutes unethical behavior and will result in the rejection of the manuscript or the retraction of the published article.

2.2 Originality and plagiarism. Authors should ensure that they have written fully original papers, and if they have made any use of the work and/or words of others, this must be clearly marked with a citation. Plagiarism is not acceptable.

2.3 Multiple or simultaneous publications. Authors should not publish a manuscript describing the same research in more than one journal. However, in exceptional and justified cases, the editorial staff of Prawo Morskie (Maritime Law) will consider publishing a text that has already been published previous, provided that it was addressed to a different audience and in a different language.

2.4 Authorship. Works published in Prawo Morskie (Maritime Law) must be published under the names of individuals who are indeed their authors and responsible for their content. Any persons whose participation in the creation of the submitted work is negligible (for example, limited to the provision of research materials) may be mentioned in the acknowledgments, but must not be listed among the authors. In case of doubt, the editorial staff may for further clarification regarding the individual contributions to the creation of the paper made by the individual persons listed as authors. The authors should also disclose, in a footnote or in the acknowledgments, information about individuals and institutions that contributed to the work through substantive, material or financial contributions. The corresponding author submitting a paper for publication should make sure that only the relevant co-authors are listed in the paper and that they have all seen and approved the final version of the paper and agreed to submit it for publication. Cases of scientific dishonesty will be documented and disclosed.

2.5 Attribution of sources. Authors should take care to properly label the results of other researchers’ work. In view of this, they should cite any and all publications from which they drew information or ideas when writing their own scientific text.

2.6 Significant errors in published works. When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his own published work, it is his duty to immediately notify the editor or publisher of the journal and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the text.


3. Responsibilities of reviewers

3.1 Contribution to editorial decisions. Scientific reviews assist the editorial staff in making editorial decisions and provide assistance to authors in improving their scientific texts.

3.2 Timeliness. Any reviewer who feels incompetent to review a paper submitted to him, or who knows that timely completion of the review will be impossible, should notify the editor thereof and withdraw from the review process.

3.3 Confidentiality. Each entire manuscript received for review is treated as a confidential document. It must not be shown to or discussed with anyone except the individuals so authorized by the Editor-in-Chief.

3.4 Objectivity standards. Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism targeted against the author(s) themselves is inappropriate. Reviewers should express their views clearly, by means of appropriate factual arguments.

3.5 Acknowledgment of sources. Any significant similarity between the reviewed work and any other published article or any duplication should be reported to the editor. Reviewers should identify any relevant published works that have not been duly cited by the authors.

3.6 Disclosure and conflict of interest. Information or ideas obtained through the review process must be treated as confidential and may not be used by the reviewer for personal gain. Reviewers should not undertake the evaluation of manuscripts which involve conflicts of interest arising from their own collaboration or other relationships with any author, private entities or institutions involved in the development of the scientific text. Authors have the right to address reviewer criticisms.

Review procedure:

1. All scientific texts, including research articles and judicial commentaries (glossa), submitted to the editors of Prawo Morskie (Maritime Law) are subject to a double-blind peer-review procedure.

2. Each scientific text is evaluated by independent experts in the relevant specialty.

3. The editors will make every effort to select reviewers who have no professional or private relationship with any author of the text under review.

4. Reviewers are required to provide an objective assessment of the submitted scientific text.

5. Reviewers are obliged to disclose any and all discovered irregularities, in particular any kind of plagiarism or self-plagiarism.

6. The review must be submitted in writing and must include a clear evaluation of the submitted scientific text.

7. Reviewers are asked to evaluate whether a scientific text is eligible for publication. This evaluation is made based on the following criteria:
- novelty of the topic addressed;
- consideration of the most recent literature on the subject; the use of appropriate methodology;
- and the text’s impact on the current state of research in the field of maritime law, the law of the sea, marine environmental law, or sustainable development and the socioeconomic environment.

8. Scientific texts referred for review are treated as confidential materials.

9. The identity of reviewers remains anonymous throughout the procedure.

10. The authors are obliged to participate in the review process, in particular to accommodate or respond to the suggested corrections, and to remedy any and all error brought to light.

11. In each printed volume of Prawo Morskie (Maritime Law) and on the website, the editors will publish a list of reviewers who collaborated with the journal in connection with a given volume.

The journal Prawo Morskie (Maritime Law) strictly adheres to the principles of scientific transparency and integrity.

We therefore will accept no forms of plagiarism, ghostwriting, or honorary authorship. In order to prevent such practices, relevant provisions have been included into the agreements signed with authors.