Focus and Scope

BAZYAFT is a high quality double blind peer reviewed research journal. It is an open access bi-annual journal and is published by Institute of Urdu Language and Literature, University of the Punjab (Pakistan). Its main aim is to provide a platform for the researchers, academicians, professionals and students to share their knowledge with the others in the form of good quality research papers from all over the world. BAZYAFT focuses on modern trends of literary research and criticism in the subject of Urdu Language and Literature, but regards the classical tradition of Urdu poetry and fiction too. Research papers which address the links between Urdu and other languages and their literature are also considered for publishing in this journal. BAZYAFT is committed to publishing the wide range of new topics of research on one important criterion that is literary and critical excellence.

It is a HEC Pakistan approved ‘y’ category journal; hence, its publications are accepted for the professional promotions (BPS/TTS) and awarding of PhD degrees in all the Pakistani public and private sector Universities as per the HEC criteria.

Section Policies

Articles

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Peer Review Process

BAZYAFT follows the double blind peer review policy. Under this policy, we remove the name of the author(s) before sending an article to the reviewers. Likewise, the name of the reviewer is never revealed before the author(s) or anyone else, in any case. We have very dynamic and well-read scholars, researchers and renowned literary figures in our review panel to get the papers reviewed. All submissions are first reviewed by the editorial team for their completeness and then are sent for peer review. No submission is considered for review of any of the editorial member of Bazyaft. Although Peer review reports play a major role in making any decision, editors will consider the review reports before making a decision, but they are not bound by the opinions or recommendations. The review process usually takes two to three months, as all the reviewers are working voluntarily. If a serious concern is raised by a reviewer or editorial member, that will result to the rejection of the manuscript.

The selection of peer reviewer is very important in publication process. We usually consider expertise and reputation of the reviewer before sending any submission to him/her. We also believe in diversity, inclusion and equity. We consider geographical, ethnic and gender identities when invite peer reviewers.  The peer review reports will be in Urdu or English regarding the nature or language of the manuscript. We obtain at least two review reports of a manuscript before reaching a decision. After two positive review reports editorial team will consider a submission, and if find it according to the scope of the journal, and contributing in its research field, the manuscript is accepted. Once accepted, a manuscript is sent to the proof reader or a lay out editor. It will take almost two weeks to finally accept the manuscript for publication.

Publication Frequency

Bazyaft is Published in June and December every year.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.It uses Creative Commons following license.

Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Archiving

This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. More...

Eitorial and Advisory Board

Editorial Board
Bazyaft
Department of Urdu, Oriental College
University of the Punjab, Lahore.

Prof. Dr. Muhammad Kamran                           Chairman Board / Chief Editor
Institute of Urdu Language & Literature      
University of the Punjab, Lahore.

Email: kamran.urdu@pu.edu.pk

 Prof. Dr. Zahid Munir Amir                             Member
Institute of Urdu Language & Literature
University of the Punjab, Lahore.

Email: zahidmuniramir@gmail.com

Prof. Dr. Zia ul Hassan                                       Member
Institute of Urdu Language & Literature
University of the Punjab, Lahore.

Email: zia.urdu@pu.edu.pk

Prof. Dr. Nasir Abbas Nayyar                            Member
Institute of Urdu Language & Literature
University of the Punjab, Lahore.

Email: nanayyar@gmail.com

Dr. Arifa Shahzad                                               Member
Associate Professor,
Institute of Urdu Language & Literature
University of the Punjab, Lahore.

Email: arifa.urdu@pu.edu.pk

Dr. Muhammad Naeem                                       Managing Editor
Associate Professor,
Institute of Urdu Language & Literature
University of the Punjab, Lahore.

Email: naeem.urdu@pu.edu.pk

Advisory Board (National)

Dr. Khurshid Rizvi
Distinguished Professor
G. C University, Lahore.

Email: khrizvi@yahoo.com

Dr. Khawaja Muhammad Zakariya
Professor Emeritus (Urdu)
University of the Punjab, Lahore.

Email: kmzakariyya@yahoo.com

Dr. Moeen ud Din Aqeel
B 215, Block 15, Gulistan E Johar,
Karachi.

Email: moinuddin.aqeel@gmail.com

Dr. Rafi ud Din Hashmi
28-D, Mansura, Multan Road
Lahore.

Email: rdhashmi@yahoo.com   

Dr. Tehsin Firaqi
Ex Director, Majlis-e-Taraqqi-e-Adab, Lahore 

Email: tehsin_feraqi@yahoo.com

Dr. Tabassum Kashmiri
85-V, Defence Housing Authority
Lahore.

Email: tabassumkashmiri@gmail.com

Dr. Abdul Aziz Sahir
Chairman
Department of Urdu, Allama Iqbal Open University
Islamabad.

Email: aziz.sahir@aiou.edu.pk

Advisory Board (International)

Prof. Soyamane
Graduate School of Language and Culture,

Osaka University, Osaka (Japan)

Email soyamane.hmt@osaka-u.ac.Jp

Prof. Dr. Celal Soydan
Urdu Language & Literature
Instanbul University, Faculty of Letters
Beyazit.Istanbul, Turkey

Email: celal.soydan@istanbul.edu.tr 

Dr. IBRAHIM MOHAMMAD IBRAHIM
Head of Urdu Department,
Faculty of Humanities,
AL-Azhar University (Girls Branch),  Madeenat Nasr, Cairo,  Egypt.

Email: danish4@hotmail.com

Dr. Muhammad Kiamarsi Jartoda
Associate Professor
Department of Urdu,
University of Tehran
Tehran, Iran

Email: kiamarsi@ut.ac.ir

Prof. Dr. Halil Toker 
Head of Urdu Language & Literature Chair
Instanbul University, Faculty of Letters
Beyazit. Istanbul, Turkey.

Email: khtoker@gmail.com

DR. MOHAMMAD RAGHIB DESHMUKH

Professor & Head, Department of Urdu

G.S. Sci. Arts & Com. College, Khamgaon

Dist. Buldana (M.S.) India

Email: mrdeshmukh@gsck.ac.in

Ethical Policies

Ethical Policy
Publishing Practice of Bazyaft is going on under a certain ethical policy which has been developed keeping in view the COPE guidelines and HEC ethical guidelines for the journals. Here are some key points:
Policy for the Editor(s):
· Editor is wholly responsible to establish/maintain the quality of the journal.
· S/He has full authority to accept or reject any research paper keeping in view the publishing policy of Bazyaft or the standard of the topic/ references/ material/ presentation/ language of the submitted paper and professional demands as well.
· Editor ensures the process of blind peer review of every paper.
· Editor ensures the Plagiarism Check of every paper and strictly follows the HEC Plagiarism Policy regarding this matter.
· Editor is bound to follow the journal's policy without any institutional pressure.
· Bazyaft discourages any sort of discrimination: Religious, Ethnic, Racial, Political or Gender.

Policy for the Author(s)
· An author (principal) is a person who has significantly authored the research paper. One who has contributed at some extent or helped out the author in write up or has contributed particularly in any design, analysis etc. s/he can be credited as co-author.
· Author would be fully responsible for the paper.
· It is the author(s)' responsibility to ensure that the research paper and data contain adequate detail and references to the sources of information in order to allow others to check its credibility. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.
· Author(s) is required to provide an undertaking stating that the submitted manuscript contains solely his original work and no material has been copied without reference from anywhere. If someone coauthors the paper then his contribution should be explicitly stated in that undertaking.
· Article once submitted by the author to Bazyaft will not be submitted to any other journal till the time he would have been conveyed about rejection from our side. Concurrent submission of the same manuscript to more than one journal is unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.
· Authors are supposed to allow the journal while submitting the paper to reserve the right to circulate the article.
· Authors are supposed to bind with journal's policy when submitting a paper to Bazyaft.
· The review process can last between 1-2 months or longer and during this period the author(s) reserve the right to contact the Editor to ask about status of the review. In the case of rejection, the author(s) reserves the right to publish the article elsewhere. In case of revisions, the author(s) must provide an exposition of all corrections made in the manuscript. In case of dissatisfaction over the decision of rejection, the author can appeal the decision by contacting the Editor.

Policy for the Reviewer(s)
Review process allows author(s) improve their manuscript through editorial communications. Scholars/ Reviewers accepting to review a research paper have an ethical responsibility to complete this assignment professionally. The quality, credibility and reputation of a journal also depend on the peer review process. The peer review process depends on the trust, and demands that a reviewer is supposed to fulfill ethically. The reviewers should:
· Immediately inform the editor if they do not have the subject expertise required to carry out the review.
· Be responsible to act punctually and submit review report on time. They should immediately inform the editor of any possible delays.
· The data included in the research paper is confidential and the reviewer is not allowed to use if for his/her personal study or any other academic or professional purpose.
· Reviewers would consider the research paper as a confidential document. They must not discuss its content on any platform except in cases where professional advice is being sought with the authorization of the editor. They are bound not to disclose the details of any research paper prior to its publication without the prior approval of the editor.
· A reviewer must declare any conflicting interests (e.g. personal, financial, intellectual, professional, political or religious). She/he should declare if the research paper under review is the same as to his/her presently conducted study.
· The reviewer may justifiably criticize a manuscript but it would be inappropriate to resort to personal criticism on the author(s). He/she is supposed to objectively carry out the review with a consideration of high academic, scholarly and scientific standards.
· Reviewer should brought into the editor's notice, before writing the evaluation report, if the research paper is based on any previous research or is replica of an earlier work, or the work is plagiarized. Moreover if the reviewer suspects the given results to be untrue/unrealistic/fake, or there has been an indication of violating ethical norms in the treatment of human beings (e.g. children, female, poor people, disabled, elderly, etc.), all these points should also be identified to the editor.
· For writing an evaluation report, reviewers are sent prescribed form(s) from the editor and they are supposed to share their comments on that form.
· The editor will surely consider reviewer's comments and may send the paper to someone else for another opinion or send it back to the author(s) for revision before making the any decision. But it is very clear that the final decision about publishing a research paper (either accept or reject) will solely rest with the editor. A reviewer cannot challenge the decision of the editor at any forum.

Allegations of Misconduct

Bazyaft follows COPE's and HEC's core practices for Allegations of misconduct of Authors, reviewers and editors.

Dealing with Misconduct
• The Editor encourages reviewers to comment on ethical issues and possible research and publication misconduct (e.g. inappropriate research design, incomplete detail on participant's consent, data manipulation, and presentation).
• The Editor encourages reviewers to comment on the validity of submitted research paper and identify 'subtle (simply copy-paste)' and/or 'blatant (paraphrasing)' type of plagiarism, if, practised by the author(s).
• The Editor will confirm plagiarism (carry out objective check through Turnitin) and/or searching for similar titles to the submitted research paper, and
• The Editor will be prepared to publish a corrigendum, remove and retract a plagiarized article if it comes to his/her knowledge subsequent to its publication.

If a case/cases of misconduct is/are reported:

Chief Editor will see the matters regarding complaints. When a complaint is lodged, the chief editor will look into the matter and after initial scrutiny will refer the cases to the following panel to handle ethics issues, review allegations, and initiate impartial and confidential investigations of cases:

1. Dr Ziaul Hasan

2. Dr Nasir Abbas Nayyar

3. Dr. Muhammad Naeem

The Panel will examine the case and prepare the report within one month.

For any complaints please write us on following email:

bazyaft@pu.edu.pk

director.iull@pu.edu.pk

To know more about the Core practices of COPE about Allegations of misconduct please follow the links:

Resources to help you develop policies and guidelines
for allegations of misconduct
• COPE guideline: Sharing of information among editors-in-chief regarding possible misconduct
(https://doi.org/10.24318/Y18YSSbNrv)
• COPE discussion document: Addressing ethics complaints from complainants who submit multiple issues
(https://doi.org/10.24318/qiW7mhWw)
• COPE discussion document: Responding to anonymous whistleblowers
(https://doi.org/10.24318/Z9gtPzCa)