OAIJSS welcomes scholarly discussion of the articles it has published, and publishes substantive letters together with the authors' reply.
Letters to the Editor
Readers may submit a Letter to the Editor raising a substantive scholarly point about a published article — a methodological or theoretical concern, an alternative interpretation of the reported evidence, relevant literature that was not considered, or an apparent factual error.
How to submit
- Send the letter to indonesiajournalsocialsciences@gmail.com with the subject line Letter to the Editor, identifying the article by title and DOI.
- Letters should not normally exceed 800 words and 10 references, with at most one table or figure.
- All authors of the letter must be named, must meet the journal's authorship criteria, and must declare any competing interests.
- Letters are ordinarily submitted within 12 weeks of publication; later letters are considered where the point raised remains material to the record.
How letters are handled
The editor assesses each letter for scholarly substance, civility and relevance. Letters consisting only of disagreement without argument or evidence, or making personal or unsubstantiated allegations, are not published; concerns about possible misconduct are handled confidentially under the Publication Ethics policy instead.
Where a letter concerns a specific article, its authors are invited to submit a reply and are given a reasonable period to do so. The journal's intention is to publish letter and reply together. Accepted letters and replies are published as citable items with their own DOI and are linked in both directions with the article discussed.
Effect on the published article
A letter does not by itself alter a published article. Where discussion establishes that the record is inaccurate or unreliable, the journal proceeds with a linked correction, an expression of concern, or a retraction under the Publication Ethics policy. Complaints about editorial conduct or process, rather than about the scholarship of a published article, and appeals against a decision, are handled under the same policy and through the Peer Review Process appeals provision.
Discussion on external platforms
OAIJSS recognises that post-publication discussion also takes place on preprint servers, post-publication peer-review platforms, scholarly networks and in subsequent literature. Substantive concerns raised there and brought to the journal's attention are assessed on their merits, by the same standards applied to letters submitted directly, and the journal acts on the published record where the evidence warrants it.