Scope and aims

Thanatos is a not-for-profit, scholarly, open access, multi-disciplinary online journal published twice a year by the Finnish Death Studies Association (FDSA). Thanatos consists of original peer-reviewed research articles, research reports, book reviews, columns, seminar reports, and other texts such as poems, comments and editorials. The primary publication language is Finnish, but we accept manuscripts also in Swedish and English.

Thanatos aspires to advance dialogue between scholars and professionals, and to broaden discussions about death and dying that cross traditional scientific boundaries. The primary target audience of Thanatos consists of researchers and practitioners working in fields related to death, dying, and bereavement.

Editorial and peer-review processes

Thanatos publishes both peer-reviewed articles and reports, and non-peer-reviewed texts. All manuscripts, abstract submissions, and special issue suggestions should be sent to the editor(s)-in-chief (see contact details below).

Together with the editorial board, the editor(s)-in-chief make the first decision whether the submitted manuscript or abstract fits the scope and aims of Thanatos and is of sufficient academic quality. The submission is then either rejected (desk rejection) or accepted for peer-review.

Thanatos uses double-blind review for all research articles (original contributions of 8,000 words) by at least two independent and external reviewer (primarily reviewers with PhDs but other experts may be used if approapriate). In some cases, a third opinion may be asked. For research reports (original contributions of 5,000 words), Thanatos uses a double-blind review by one independent and external reviewer. The recommended turn around time of peer-reviews is four weeks but in some cases it may take longer. After the peer-review, the editor(s)-in-chief with the editorial board make the final decision about publication, while considering the recommendations of the reviewer(s).

Other texts and short communications (book reviews, columns, seminar reports, editorials) are not peer-reviewed. However, they go through an editorial review to ensure they follow best academic and scholarly practices.

Thanatos follows the guidelines of the Finnish Association of Scholarly Publishing and the Advisory Board on Research Integrity (TENK) and has been granted the right to use the label for peer-reviewed scholarly publications by the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies (TSV). Each research article marked with the peer-review label goes through a review process in which at least two external and independent experts evaluate the rigour and contribution of the article. Thanatos also adheres to the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing.

Publication ethics

We have a strict anti-plagiarism policy and any texts suspected to breach best academic practices will be checked using Turnitin, and will not be published if any indication of plagiarism is found. Any published texts found to breach best academic practices (including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication) will not be published and will be redacted if already published.

All complaints and appeals are processed within the editorial board. External and independent reviewers are consulted upon the decision to ensure a fair and transparent process.

Thanatos requires that everyone listed as an author should have a made a direct and substantial contribution to the work, including intellectual and practical contributions such as research design, concept, analysis and/or interpretation and/or aquisition of data, theoretical contributions, argument structure, and writing and/or drafting and/or revising the manuscript. All listed authors should accept the final manusript and accountability of the final manuscript.

Open Access policies, copyright and licencing

Thanatos is an open access journal and all its contents are accessible without any fees or registration immediately upon publication. The copyright of the articles published in Thanatos since 2022 are owned by authors. Metadata of the journal is published with open CC0 1.0 licence.

Thanatos uses the CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Reference to the original material and authors should always be indicated (Thanatos issue, number, publication year, article name, authors, URL). Articles and other texts published in Thanatos may be re-published but the information of the original publication should be clearly indicated (Thanatos issue, number, publication year, article name, authors, URL) and should not breach the CC-BY-NC-ND licence.

Thanatos is licenced under Creative Commons BY-NC-ND. Anyone may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, cite link and share all content of Thanatos including full text articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose. Any use under the CC-BY-NC-ND licence must use appropriate references to the original material and its authors, following the terms of the CC-licence and best academic practice. The contect of Thanatos may not be used for commercial puposes. The content of Thanatos may not be adapted, remixed, transformed, translated or updated without the permission of the copyright holder.

Fees

The full texts of all content of Thanatos are fully open access without delay, free of charge and without an embargo period or the need to register. Thanatos does not charge any publication fees, but arranging proofreading and language checking and any associated costs are the responsibility of the author(s).