Author Guidlines

``Overview and Ethical Commitment: Sport-Mu requires all contributing authors to adhere strictly to international standards of scholarly publishing and ethical integrity. According to the COPE Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing, journals must provide detailed guidelines to authors specifying "guidelines on manuscript preparation, submission procedures, and the ethical standards expected of authors". All manuscripts submitted to Sport-Mu must represent original work that has not been published previously nor is currently under consideration for publication elsewhere.

Authorship Criteria and Contributorship: Defining authorship accurately is fundamental to maintaining research integrity. In accordance with the COPE Guidance on Authorship and Contributorship, "authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the concept, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study". All listed authors must have reviewed and approved the final version of the manuscript and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work. Ghost, guest, or gift authorship is strictly prohibited by Sport-Mu.
Plagiarism, Duplicate Submission, and Redundant Publication: Sport-Mu applies a strict zero-tolerance policy regarding academic dishonesty and text recycling. As emphasized in the COPE Guidelines on Handling Plagiarism, editors are required to screen incoming manuscripts to verify that "the manuscript does not contain uncredited copied material or text recycling from previously published works". All submissions to Sport-Mu are screened using plagiarism detection software prior to peer review, and manuscripts exceeding acceptable similarity thresholds will be rejected immediately.
Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest and Funding: Transparency regarding competing interests is mandatory for all submissions. Based on the COPE Competing Interests Guidelines, authors must declare "all financial and non-financial competing interests that could be perceived to bias their work". Authors submitting to Sport-Mu must include a dedicated "Declaration of Competing Interests" section in their manuscript, as well as explicit disclosures detailing all sources of financial support, grants, or institutional funding received for the conduct of the research.
Human and Animal Ethics Approvals: Research involving human subjects or animal testing must conform to rigorous ethical standards. In compliance with the COPE Standards for Human and Animal Rights, "studies involving human subjects or animals must state that ethical approval was obtained from an appropriate institutional or national ethics committee". Manuscripts reporting empirical studies submitted to Sport-Mu must explicitly state the approving ethics committee name, protocol/approval number, and confirmation that informed consent was obtained from all human participants.
Data Availability and Reproducibility: To foster scientific openness and reproducibility, Sport-Mu encourages authors to share their underlying research data. In alignment with COPE Guidance on Data and Reproducibility, authors are advised that "journals should encourage open research data policies and require authors to provide a Data Availability Statement". Authors are required to declare whether the datasets generated during the study are publicly available, deposited in a repository, or available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Handling Errors, Corrigenda, and Retractions: Authors maintain an ongoing obligation to notify the journal if errors are discovered post-publication. As stated in the COPE Retraction Guidelines, "authors should inform the editor promptly if they discover a significant error or inaccuracy in their published work so that appropriate corrections or retractions can be issued". Sport-Mu works closely with authors to publish corrections, expressions of concern, or retractions whenever necessary to preserve the accuracy of the scientific record.

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