Plagiarism Policy
We recognize that plagiarism is not acceptable and establishes a policy stating specific actions when plagiarism is identified in a submitted article. Plagiarism is when an author attempts to use or claim someone else works as his(her) own or reuses substantial parts of his or her own published work without appropriate references (self-plagiarism). The latter may range from getting an identical paper published in multiple journals to salami-slicing, where authors add small amounts of new data to a previous article.
Plagiarism Pre-screening: Similarity
The manuscripts in which the plagiarism is indicated are handled based on the extent of the similarity. The editor uses iThenticate to detect similarities in the submitted manuscripts.
- Similarity > 30%
The manuscript will be rejected without review.
- Similarity < 15% - 30%
The manuscript may still be considered for review, but if the article is accepted, the Author(s) are obliged to revise the manuscript to fulfil the journal requirement (similarity < 15%).
If Plagiarism Is Detected Prior Publishing
If plagiarism is identified before publishing, the author(s) will be asked to rewrite the content or cite the references properly. In the case of substantial plagiarism, the editor will decline the paper submission.
If Plagiarism Detected After Publication
If a case of plagiarism comes to light after a paper is published, we will conduct a preliminary investigation. Depending on the extent of the plagiarism found, we may notify the author's institute and formally retract the paper.