ZhongYu International Education is committed to maintaining academic integrity across all its publications and has clear policies for article corrections, retractions, withdrawals, and expressions of concern.
Corrections
If authors discover a substantive error in their published article, they should notify the editorial office as soon as possible. Corrections are only issued for factual errors that affect the accuracy or interpretation of the work. Corrections based solely on author opinion or speculation will not be accepted.
- Major corrections will be published as a separate correction notice, linked to the original article and updated in the article metadata.
- Minor corrections (that do not affect the article’s academic reliability or reader comprehension) will be addressed via a footnote in the article.
- All corrected versions must be reviewed and approved by the authors before being published.
For name corrections or authorship changes, please refer to our Authorship Policy.
Withdrawals
Authors may request to withdraw a submitted manuscript by contacting the editorial office. The request must come from the corresponding or first author and include a detailed written explanation along with confirmation from all co-authors.
- Withdrawal requests during peer review or production require valid justification and may incur administrative costs.
- Only legitimate withdrawal requests will be considered. The final decision is at the discretion of the editorial office.
Retractions
Published articles may be retracted when serious ethical breaches are identified, including but not limited to:
- Plagiarism, data fabrication or falsification
- Duplicate publication
- Undisclosed conflicts of interest
- Authorship fraud or serious methodological errors
- Legal or regulatory violations
ZhongYu International Education follows the COPE Retraction Guidelines. Retractions will include:
- A separate retraction notice titled “Retraction: [Article Title]”
- A clear explanation of the reason for retraction
- A visible watermark (“Retracted”) on the PDF of the article
- Continued availability of the original record with the retraction linked, to maintain transparency
Please note that Article Processing Charges (APCs) will not be refunded in cases of retraction due to author misconduct.
Expression of Concern
If a published article is under investigation due to suspected misconduct and the outcome is pending, we may issue an Expression of Concern to alert readers. This will include details of the issue and the status of the investigation.
Article Removal
In rare circumstances, articles may be permanently removed from our platform if they contain:
- Defamatory content
- Privacy violations or legal risks
- Infringement of copyright or ethical violations
In such cases, a removal notice will be issued in place of the article to explain the reason for removal.
