Plagiarism
Plagiarism is observed when one author uses someone’s idea, content, or data in their own authorship’s work. Sometimes intentionally and sometimes due to lack of awareness, the researchers use someone’s work in their own work without giving proper credit to the original source. Manipulation of the data and/or paraphrasing of someone’s content harm the original research work. It wastes the reader’s time and in the case of work is the output of the public funding than the waste of the taxpayer’s money.
Copy pate practice of references, without verifying the relevance of the article with reference is also an alarming situation in this way. So try to avoid such types of practices and use only the relevant references in the text.
As per the UGC Regulation, 2018, these sections/parts/components of the research paper are exempted from the similarity index:
i. All quoted work reproduced with all necessary permission and/or attribution.
ii. All references, bibliography, table of content, preface, and acknowledgments.
iii. All generic terms, laws, standard symbols, and standards equations.
Keeping in mind, the intensity of plagiarized content practices, in this journal the corresponding author will ensure and submit the undertaking that the article is original and free from similar content (zero percent) in the abstract and conclusion while 15 percent is acceptable in the introduction provided individual sources’ contributions are equal to two or less than two percent subject to length of the paper (review paper above six pages). In the case of the regular article (4-6 pages), it should remain below 10 percent provided each source’s contribution remains one or less than one percent. In both the case review and regular articles’ results and analysis, it should be below 10 percent provided each source’s contribution is either one or below one percent. In all cases (review and regular articles), if the overall similarity index is above 20 percent then the paper will be sent back for improvement. In another case, if the overall similarity index is 20 percent or below that but individual sources’ contribution is greater than 2 then also the paper will be sent back for improvement. In any situation, if the overall similarity index is 40 percent or above irrespective of the individual source contributions and/or length of the paper, the paper will be rejected and the author(s) can’t submit the paper in the next 6 months from the date of submission.