Withdrawal of Manuscript Policy

Dinamika Penelitian: Media Komunikasi Penelitian Sosial Keagamaan recognizes that authors may need to withdraw a submitted manuscript for legitimate reasons, including serious errors, authorship disputes, ethical concerns, duplicate submission identified by the authors, changes in research circumstances, problems concerning participant or community consent, or other substantial reasons. Withdrawal requests will be handled fairly, transparently, confidentially, and proportionately in accordance with the journal’s Publication Ethics and Research Integrity policy and relevant COPE Guidance and Tools.

General Principles

Authors should submit a manuscript only after all listed authors have read and approved the final version and agreed to its submission to Dinamika Penelitian. Authors must not submit the same or substantially similar manuscript to another journal while it is under consideration by Dinamika Penelitian.

A manuscript is not considered withdrawn merely because the author has sent a withdrawal request. The withdrawal becomes effective only after the corresponding author receives written confirmation from the editorial office. Until formal confirmation is issued, the manuscript remains part of the journal’s editorial process.

Withdrawal Before Editorial Screening

Authors may request withdrawal before the manuscript enters editorial screening or external peer review. The corresponding author must submit a written request through the journal’s online submission system or official editorial email.

The request should include the manuscript title, submission identification number, names of all authors, reason for withdrawal, and confirmation that all co-authors have agreed to the request. Requests submitted at this early stage will normally be processed promptly.

Withdrawal During Editorial Screening or Peer Review

Authors may request withdrawal while a manuscript is undergoing editorial assessment or external peer review. The request must provide a clear and honest explanation and confirm the agreement of all authors.

Because editors and reviewers may already have invested time and professional expertise in evaluating the manuscript, authors are expected to request withdrawal only for legitimate reasons. However, the journal will not compel authors to continue the publication process after a formal withdrawal request has been submitted.

The editorial office will close the submission after confirming the request and ensuring that there are no unresolved authorship, ethical, legal, research-integrity, participant-consent, or community-related concerns.

Withdrawal After Acceptance

A request to withdraw an accepted manuscript must be submitted immediately and must clearly explain the reason for withdrawal. The request must be approved by all listed authors.

Withdrawal after acceptance may be appropriate when authors identify serious errors, unreliable data, ethical problems, authorship disputes, participant-consent concerns, community permission issues, or other circumstances that may affect the validity, legality, or integrity of the manuscript.

Requests made solely to transfer an accepted manuscript to another journal, obtain faster publication elsewhere, avoid editorial requirements, or disregard the work already completed by editors and reviewers may be considered irresponsible publication conduct. The journal will nevertheless evaluate each case fairly and will normally confirm withdrawal before publication while retaining the right to investigate possible ethical concerns.

Withdrawal During Production or Proofreading

Authors who identify serious errors or ethical concerns during copyediting, layout, proofreading, or metadata preparation must immediately notify the editorial office. Minor errors should normally be corrected during proofreading rather than used as grounds for withdrawal.

A manuscript may be withdrawn before publication when the identified problem materially affects the reliability, authorship, ethical acceptability, legality, participant protection, community safety, or scholarly integrity of the work. Withdrawal at this stage requires written approval from the Editor-in-Chief or responsible editor.

Requests After Publication

Once an article has been formally published online and assigned publication metadata, it can no longer be treated as a withdrawn manuscript. Concerns identified after publication will be handled through correction, expression of concern, retraction, replacement, or article removal in exceptional circumstances.

Such cases will be managed in accordance with the journal’s Corrections, Retractions, and Expressions of Concern Policy and the COPE Retraction Guidelines.

Procedure for Requesting Withdrawal

The corresponding author must submit the withdrawal request through the official OJS discussion system or the journal’s official editorial email. The request should include the manuscript title, submission identification number, author names, a clear explanation of the reason for withdrawal, and confirmation that all authors have agreed.

When necessary, the editorial office may request a signed withdrawal statement from all authors or additional clarification regarding authorship, ethics approval, informed consent, community permission, data integrity, duplicate submission, copyright, funding, or conflicts of interest.

The editorial office will communicate its decision through the official journal system or editorial email. Authors must retain the written confirmation as evidence that the manuscript has been formally withdrawn.

Authorship Disputes

When a withdrawal request results from an authorship dispute, the journal will not determine who legally or academically qualifies as an author. The editorial process may be suspended while the authors and their institutions resolve the dispute.

The journal may request written agreement from all listed authors before closing the submission. If agreement cannot be reached, the journal may refer the matter to the relevant institutional authorities in accordance with its publication-ethics procedures.

Ethical and Community-Related Concerns

For manuscripts based on socio-religious research, community empowerment, participatory action research, ethnography, digital ethnography, fieldwork, or community service activities, withdrawal may be requested when there are serious concerns about participant consent, community permission, confidentiality, misrepresentation of field data, harm to participants or communities, or exposure of sensitive religious, family, institutional, or community information.

The journal may request supporting information, such as ethics approval, informed-consent procedures, community-permission documents, interview protocols, field notes, anonymized data, or institutional clarification, when ethical or community-related concerns are involved.

Duplicate or Multiple Submission

If a withdrawal request reveals that the manuscript has simultaneously been submitted to another journal, the editorial office may investigate the matter as a potential breach of publication ethics. Withdrawal does not automatically end an investigation into duplicate submission, plagiarism, fabricated data, manipulated peer review, inappropriate authorship, or other serious misconduct.

The journal may request clarification and supporting evidence and, when justified, communicate with the other journal, the authors’ institutions, or relevant research-integrity bodies. Any action will be evidence-based, confidential, and proportionate.

Editorial Withdrawal or Closure

The journal may close or withdraw a manuscript from the editorial process when authors repeatedly fail to respond to editorial communication, do not submit required revisions within the specified period, refuse to provide necessary ethical or research documentation, or breach the journal’s publication policies.

Before closing the submission, the editorial office will normally send a final notification to the corresponding author. Administrative closure does not imply that the manuscript has been accepted, published, retracted, or formally withdrawn by the authors.

Fair and Proportionate Treatment

Dinamika Penelitian does not automatically blacklist authors or their institutions merely because a manuscript has been withdrawn. Institutions will not be held collectively responsible for an individual author’s withdrawal request.

However, repeated, deceptive, or deliberately unethical conduct may be considered when the journal evaluates future submissions. Any restriction will only be imposed after a fair investigation, communication with the parties involved, and consideration of the seriousness and frequency of the conduct.

Confidentiality and Record Keeping

Withdrawal requests, author explanations, editorial correspondence, and supporting documents will be treated confidentially. The journal may retain an internal record of the withdrawn submission to preserve the integrity, accountability, and traceability of the editorial process.

A withdrawn manuscript will not be published or represented as an accepted article. Its title and authors will not normally be publicly displayed unless disclosure is required to correct the scholarly record or address a serious legal, ethical, or research-integrity concern.

Related Policies and Standards

This policy should be read together with the journal’s Publication Ethics and Research Integrity, Peer Review Process, Plagiarism Check Policy, Corrections, Retractions, and Expressions of Concern Policy, and Appeals and Complaints Policy.

The journal also refers to relevant COPE Guidance and Tools in handling withdrawal requests and publication-ethics concerns.