Plagiarism Policy

Journal reputation depends on high quality, original scientific work and it depends upon the trust of researchers, authors, reviewers, readers and administrators of public health policy. This can be achieved only if the entire peer review and publication process is thorough, fair and aim is to improve the quality of the original scientific work.

Plagiarism is defined as “taking and using the thoughts, writing and invention of other person as one’s own”

PAMS will abide by the guidelines formulated by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for dealing with plagiarism. The COPE flowcharts (www.publicationethics.org) will be used by the Editor to identify the type of plagiarism and appropriate response. This flowchart also distinguishes plagiarism (i.e. copying from others) from redundancy or self-plagiarism (i.e. copying from one’s own work). The Editor will make sure that authors involved will be dealt in accordance with their seniority, writing an educational letter to very junior researchers, but informing the institutions ones senior authors are involved. In addition Editors response will be based on type and gravity of plagiarism, no demarcation will be made where author intends to mislead the reader by taking someone else work as his or her own.

PAMS will look into various features of different types of plagiarism as outlined by COPE. Among these are extent; originality of copied material; position context/ type of material; Referencing/attribution; Intention.

Taking extent into account, the most blatant forms of plagiarism involve the copying of whole paper or chapters, it’s not only a severe type of plagiarism but a breach of copyright. Among the most severe types of plagiarism are; someone whole scientific work is translated into other language, original phrase and idea is copied as such, data/findings are taken as such from someone else original work, unreferenced work and there is intention to deceive.

PAMS editorial staff will screen all the manuscripts on receipt, manuscripts that are sent out for external peer review, manuscripts that are provisionally accepted. Turnitin will be used to check the similarity index. No more than 19% of similarity index will be accepted.

Clear-cut cases of serious plagiarism (e.g. whole articles or large sections of text) may warrant restrictions. However identification of path writing or micro-plagiarism has only become possible with the availability of specialized software, therefore prior to apply sanctions to authors retrospectively the PAMS will not pose sanctions if minor plagiarism is found in previous issues, but warning authors that text similarity in future submissions will not be tolerated.

Major plagiarism could be defined as:

“Any case involving

  • Unattributed copying of another person’s data/findings, or
  • Resubmission of an entire publication under another authors name (either in the original language or in translation), or
  • Verbatim copying of > 100 words of original material in the absence of any citation to source material, or
  • Unattributed use of original, published academic work, such as the structure, argument or hypothesis/idea of another person or group where this is a major part of the new publication and there is evidence that it was not developed independently.

“Minor plagiarism could be defined as:

  • Verbatim copying of <100 words without indicating that these are a direct quotation from an original work (whether or not the source is cited), unless the text is accepted as widely used or standardized (e.g. the description of a standard technique)
  • Close copying (not quite verbatim, but changed only slightly from the original) of significant sections (e.g.> 100 words) from another work (whether or not that work is cited)

Use of images without acknowledgement of the source could be defined as:

  • Republication of an image (photograph, diagram, drawing, etc) generated by another person without acknowledging the source

Editor response in case of Minor plagiarism in submitted article

In case of minor plagiarism the Editor will write to author and request reworking (if the article is rejected) or, point out that minor plagiarism has been detected and advise the authors to correct it before resubmission.

Editor response in case of Minor plagiarism in published article

The Editor will inform the author about findings, will issue a correction and apology.

       Editor response in case of Major plagiarism in submitted article

       The Editor will present findings to all the authors and ask them to respond; will ask the authors if all or only some of them are responsible for the plaigrized sections, decide if any authors were unaware  of the plaigrism and if so whether they are in any way responsible for the behavior of the other authors (e.g. in supervisory capacity); explain that plaigrism is unacceptable and that you plan to inform their institution.

Editor response in case of Major plagiarism in published article

As for submitted article, then retract article.