Plagiarism policy

The  Journal is committed to publishing only original material, i.e., material that has neither been published elsewhere nor is under review elsewhere.

The Journal uses software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. Manuscripts in which plagiarism or textual borrowings are found without reference to the original source are rejected by the editorial board for publication in the journal.

Plagiarism before publication

The Journal will judge any case of plagiarism on its own merits. If plagiarism is detected, either by the editors, peer reviewers or editorial staff at any stage before publication of a manuscript (before or after acceptance, during editing or at page proof stage), we will alert the author(s), asking her or him to either rewrite the text or quote the text exactly and to cite the original source. If the plagiarism is more than 25% of the original submission, the article will be rejected.

The percentage of plagiarism is calculated by software and also assessed manually.

Plagiarism after publication

If plagiarism is detected after publication, the Journal will conduct an investigation. If plagiarism is found, the journal editorial office will contact the author's institute and funding agencies. The paper containing the plagiarism will be marked on each page of the PDF. Depending on the extent of the plagiarism, the paper may also be formally retracted.

Recommendations for avoiding plagiarism

  • Use quotation marks around words taken verbatim from a source
  • Change no part of quotation within the context of the sentence
  • Use ellipses (a space and three periods) for a part of the quotation omitted.
  • Use brackets around added words
  • Limit the use of direct quotes

Attempt to paraphrase the information, or summarize the information derived from a variety of sources using own words.

Authors are responsible for obtaining copyright permission for reproducing illustrations, tables, figures taken from other authors and/or source. Permission must be placed at the foot of each figure.

Self-Plagiarism

Some authors have written several chapters for several different books that are changed only slightly. Each manuscript is copyrighted when published. Because the author no longer owns the rights to these words, one should not plagiarize them. Thus, an author cannot copy one’s own material for a new manuscript without permission of the copyright holder. Alternatives include using quotes around short phrases of own work and citing appropriate references.

Plagiarism Software

For testing of plagiarism software is used: Unicheck.