Plagiarism Policy

PLAGIARISM is a violation or infringement of the intellectual property rights (IPR) of the original author in the form of authorship rights, sometimes also known as the paternity right. Plagiarism certainly points towards a lack of originality and novelty in any writing, whether scientific or otherwise. Plagiarism in scientific research papers is a serious matter because it creates doubts about the quality of research in terms of novelty. Plagiarism is not acceptable in IJSRMS. Plagiarised content will not be considered for publication. If plagiarism is identified, we will follow the standard procedure for taking action against authors.

Misappropriating another person’s intellectual property constitutes plagiarism. This includes copying sentences or paragraphs verbatim (or almost verbatim) from someone else’s work, even if the original work is cited in the references. Plagiarism is deliberately using someone else’s language, ideas, or other original material without acknowledging its source and without giving them credit. Plagiarism is stealing someone’s intellectual property, which is legally and morally untenable. In addition, it can cause economic disadvantages to the original author. Copying even one sentence from someone else’s manuscript, or even one of your own that has previously been published, without proper citation is considered plagiarism. Authors should always avoid Plagiarism. We always try to check and curb plagiarism.

The IJSRMS uses the Turnitin software which detects instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. This software checks content against a database of periodicals, the Internet, and a comprehensive article database. It generates a similarity report, highlighting the percentage overlap between the uploaded article and the published material. Any instance of content overlap is further scrutinised for suspected plagiarism according to the publisher’s Editorial Policies. If the similarity seems legitimate, the article will proceed for further review process; however, in cases of superfluous plagiarism, the authors have to revise the text as per editorial instructions.

The journal strictly follows the COPE guidelines to detect plagiarism; for more clear insight, authors may refer to flowcharts provided by COPE by clicking here or by visiting COPE website.

Low Text Similarity

The text of every submitted manuscript is checked using the Content Tracking mode in Turnitin. The Content Tracking mode ensures that manuscripts with an overall low percentage similarity (but which may have a higher similarity from a single source) are not overlooked. If the similarity level is significantly high, then the manuscript is returned to the author for paraphrasing the text and citing the original source of the copied material.

It is important to mention that text taken from different sources with an overall low similarity percentage will be considered as a plagiarised content if the majority of the article is a combination of copied material.

High Text Similarity

There may be some manuscripts with an overall low similarity percentage, but a higher percentage from a single source. For instance, a manuscript may have less than 20% overall similarity, but there may be 10% similar text taken from a single article; the similarity index in such cases is higher than the approved limit for a single source. Authors are advised to thoroughly rephrase similar text and properly cite the original source to avoid plagiarism and copyright violation.

Types of Plagiarism

We all know that scholarly manuscripts are written after a thorough review of previously published articles. It is therefore, not easy to draw a clear boundary between legitimate representation and plagiarism. However, the following important features can assist in identifying different kinds of plagiarized content. These are:

1. Reproduction of others words, sentences, ideas or findings as one’s own without proper acknowledgement.
2. Text recycling, also known as self-plagiarism. It is an author’s use of a previous publication in another paper without proper citation and acknowledgment of the original source.
3. Paraphrasing poorly: Copying complete paragraphs and modifying a few words without changing the structure of original sentences or changing the sentence structure but not the words.
4. Verbatim copying of text without putting quotation marks and not acknowledging the work of the original author.
5. Properly citing a work but poorly paraphrasing the original text is considered as unintentional plagiarism. Similarly, manuscripts with language somewhere between paraphrasing and quoting are not acceptable. Authors should either paraphrase properly or quote and in both cases, cite the original source.
6. Higher similarity in the abstract, introduction, materials and methods, and discussion and conclusion sections indicates that the manuscript may contain plagiarized text. Authors can easily explain these parts of the manuscript in many ways. However, technical terms and sometimes standard procedures cannot be rephrased; therefore Editors must review these sections carefully before making a decision.
Policy and Action for Plagiarism in Published Manuscripts

Published manuscripts which are found to contain plagiarized text are retracted from the journal website after careful investigation and approval by the Editor-in-Chief of the journal. A ‘Retraction Note’ as well as a link to the original article is published on the electronic version of the plagiarized manuscript and an addendum with retraction notification in the journal concerned.

On the other hand, the journal can also do this: the editorial office shall immediately contact the director, dean, or head of the concerned college, institution, or organisation, or the vice-chancellor of the university to which the author(s) is or are affiliated, to take strict action against the concerned author. The publisher shall remove the PDF copy of the published manuscript from the website, disable all links to full-text articles, and also remove it from other third-party websites where the paper is listed and indexed. The term "plagiarised manuscript" shall be appended to the published manuscript title. The publisher shall disable the author's account with the journal and reject all future submissions. The publisher may also display a list of such authors along with their full contact details on the journal website. Any other course of action, as recommended by the Committee, as deemed fit for the instant case, or as decided by the Editorial Board from time to time.