Corrections, Retractions, Expressions of Concern and Post-Publication Discussion Policy

Maintaining the Scholarly Record

The Dyal Singh Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences (DSJHSS) is responsible for maintaining an accurate and transparent scholarly record. Legitimate errors or concerns discovered after publication should be corrected in a way that preserves the history of the publication.

Minor Changes

Minor typographical or formatting errors that do not affect interpretation may be corrected in the online version where technically appropriate without a formal correction notice. Changes that affect meaning, attribution, data, analysis, conclusions or the scholarly record require a transparent notice.

Corrections

A correction may be published when an article contains an error that does not invalidate the work as a whole but requires the record to be amended.

The correction should identify the original article, describe the material change and be linked to the article where technically possible.

Retractions

Retraction may be appropriate where there is reliable evidence that the findings or scholarly content are seriously unreliable because of misconduct or major error, where the article substantially plagiarises or duplicates previous publication, where publication is unethical, or where another serious integrity problem invalidates the work.

A retraction notice should explain the reason sufficiently for readers to understand the action while avoiding defamatory or unsupported statements.

The original article should normally remain part of the scholarly record and be clearly marked as retracted rather than silently deleted.

Expressions of Concern

An expression of concern may be used where serious questions exist but an investigation is incomplete, inconclusive or substantially delayed and readers should be alerted pending resolution.

Removal

Complete removal of published content is reserved for exceptional circumstances, such as a legal requirement, serious privacy or safety risk, or content that cannot lawfully remain available. Where possible, a bibliographic record and explanation should remain.

Author-Initiated Errors

Authors who discover a material error in their published work should contact the journal promptly at editor@dsjhss.gdscl.com.pk.

Post-Publication Discussion

Reasoned scholarly comments, corrections or criticisms concerning published articles may be submitted to the journal. The editorial team may seek a response from the original author and may publish a correction, response or other notice where it contributes materially to the scholarly record.

Post-publication disagreement alone is not a reason for retraction. Retraction and correction decisions concern reliability, ethics, attribution and integrity rather than whether a conclusion is controversial.