Post-Publication Discussion

Peer review does not end at publication. Jurnal Syntax treats every published article as open to scrutiny, replication, and reasoned criticism, and provides formal, documented channels through which readers may comment on, question, or challenge published work. This page explains the channels available, the rules of engagement, the timeline the editorial office commits to, and the outcomes a discussion may lead to.

1. Channels for Post-Publication Discussion

A. Letter to the Editor

A short, citable contribution (maximum 1,500 words, up to 10 references, one table or figure) that comments on, extends, or disputes a specific article. Submitted through the normal OJS workflow under the section Letter to the Editor. Accepted letters are published in the next issue with their own DOI and are linked from the original article.

B. Commentary or Technical Note

A longer analytical response (maximum 3,000 words) presenting a re-analysis, a failed or successful replication, an alternative interpretation, or a methodological critique. Commentaries undergo the same double-blind peer review as research articles.

C. Direct Correspondence with the Editorial Office

Readers who prefer not to publish may write to admin_syntax@dharmawangsa.ac.id, quoting the article title, DOI, and the specific passage, table, or figure concerned. Every substantive message receives a written reply.

D. Third-Party Platforms

The editorial office monitors comments on the journal's indexed records, including PubPeer, Google Scholar, ResearchGate, and Dimensions. Substantive concerns raised in public are brought into the formal process described below rather than left unanswered.

2. Rules of Engagement

  • Be specific. A comment must identify the article by DOI and point to the precise claim, equation, table, figure, dataset, or passage in question. General expressions of disagreement cannot be processed.
  • Be evidential. Criticism must be supported by argument, citation, data, or reproducible analysis. Where a re-analysis is claimed, the code or data used should be made available to the editors.
  • Address the work, not the person. Comments questioning competence, motive, nationality, institution, gender, or seniority will not be considered. Criticism of the research is always welcome; criticism of the researcher is not.
  • Identify yourself. Correspondents must provide their name, affiliation, and institutional e-mail address, and declare any competing interest in relation to the article under discussion. Identities are kept confidential from the authors until the correspondent agrees to disclosure, except where publication of a letter requires attribution.
  • Anonymous or pseudonymous submissions are not published as letters. Where they contain specific, verifiable evidence of error or misconduct, they are nonetheless assessed on their merits under the Allegation of Research Misconduct policy.
  • Allegations of misconduct are not discussion. A comment alleging plagiarism, data fabrication, image manipulation, authorship abuse, or duplicate publication is removed from this channel and handled confidentially under the misconduct procedure, which carries different protections for all parties.

3. How a Comment Is Processed

1

Acknowledgement — within 5 working days

The editorial office records the comment in the post-publication register, assigns a reference number, and confirms receipt to the correspondent. No comment is discarded without a reasoned reply.

2

Editorial Screening — within 14 working days

The Editor in Chief, with the handling editor of the original article, determines whether the comment is substantive. Where specialised expertise is required, an independent reviewer who was not involved in the original review is consulted.

3

Right of Reply — author response within 21 days

The original authors receive the full text of the comment and are invited to respond. No corrective action is taken and no letter is published before the authors have had a genuine opportunity to reply. Where authors do not respond, the journal records this and proceeds on the evidence available.

4

Decision — within 60 days of acknowledgement

The editorial board decides the outcome and communicates it in writing to the correspondent and to the authors, with reasons. Complex cases requiring institutional involvement may take longer; the parties are informed of the delay and of the expected timeline.

5

Publication of the Exchange

Where a letter is published, the author reply is published alongside it in the same issue, so that readers see both positions together. Both items are permanently linked from the original article page.

4. Possible Outcomes

No Further Action
The comment reflects a legitimate difference of scientific opinion. It is published as a letter with the author reply, and the article stands unchanged.
Correction
A verified error that does not affect the conclusions is addressed through a Corrigendum or Erratum, citable and linked to the article.
Expression of Concern
A serious question remains unresolved, or an institutional inquiry is pending. A dated notice alerts readers while the matter is investigated.
Retraction
The findings are shown to be unreliable, or misconduct is established. The article is retracted under the Correction and Retraction policy.

5. Permanence of the Scholarly Record

  • Nothing is removed silently. A published article is never edited, replaced, or deleted in response to a comment. Any change to the record is made through a separate, dated, citable notice.
  • Discussion is part of the record. Published letters, commentaries, and author replies are assigned DOIs, deposited with Crossref, and indexed, so that the discussion remains discoverable alongside the article.
  • Bidirectional linking. The original article links forward to every letter, reply, correction, or notice that concerns it, and each of those links back to the article.
  • Register of correspondence. The editorial office retains the full record of each case — comment, assessment, author reply, and decision — for a minimum of five years, and makes it available to accreditation bodies and indexing services on request.

6. Encouraging Replication and Open Scrutiny

Because Jurnal Syntax publishes in software engineering, computer science, and information technology, the most valuable form of post-publication discussion is often an attempted replication. The journal therefore:

DATA AND CODE ON REQUEST

Authors are required to make the data, code, and configuration necessary to verify their results available to readers on reasonable request. A refusal without a stated legal, privacy, or contractual ground is reported to the editors and may itself be grounds for an Expression of Concern.

REPLICATION STUDIES ARE WELCOME

Manuscripts reporting a replication — whether it confirms or contradicts an article previously published in this journal — are accepted for review on their methodological merit, and a negative result is not a ground for rejection.

NO PENALTY FOR CRITICISM

Submitting a letter or commentary that criticises an article published in Jurnal Syntax does not affect the treatment of the correspondent's own submissions to this journal, now or in future.

Address all post-publication correspondence to:
Editorial Office, Jurnal Syntax — Post-Publication Discussion
Software Engineering Study Program, Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science, Universitas Dharmawangsa
Jl. K.L. Yos Sudarso No. 224, Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia
E-mail: admin_syntax@dharmawangsa.ac.id — please write “Post-Publication Comment: [article DOI]” in the subject line.

This policy follows the COPE guidance on handling post-publication critiques and on correcting the literature. See publicationethics.org/postpublication