Plagiarism

The journal treats plagiarism as serious misconduct and takes a preventive, proportionate and transparent approach.

What counts as plagiarism

  • Verbatim copying of text, tables, figures or data without quotation and citation
  • Paraphrasing plagiarism, including text reworded with a paraphrasing tool or generative AI without citing the source
  • Idea plagiarism, using another person's argument, framework or finding without credit
  • Translation plagiarism, translating another author's work (for example, from English to Indonesian) and presenting it as new
  • Self-plagiarism (text recycling) and duplicate or redundant publication, including re-submitting the same results under a different title, or splitting one study into several papers ("salami slicing") without disclosure
  • Image and data plagiarism and unattributed reuse of datasets
  • Citation manipulation, including padding references to boost a journal's or person's citation counts

Screening

  1. Every submission is checked with Turnitin at the desk-screening stage, before it is sent to reviewers.
  2. Accepted manuscripts are checked again after revision, before copyediting.
  3. The screening report is reviewed by an editor; a similarity percentage alone is never a verdict. Editors look at where the matching text appears and whether the sources are cited.

Thresholds

Overall similarity (excluding references, quotations and standard method phrases)

Action

Up to 20%, with no single source above 5%

Proceeds to peer review

21–30%, or any single source above 5%

Returned to authors once for revision and re-screening

Above 30%, or clear unattributed copying at any percentage

Rejected; may be reported under the misconduct policy

Similarity to the author's own thesis, dissertation or preprint is allowed if it is disclosed in a cover note and in the manuscript.

Author responsibilities

  • Cite all sources, use quotation marks for exact wording, and describe any reuse of own previous text.
  • Disclose preprints, theses and conference papers from which the manuscript derives.
  • Confirm at submission that the work is original and is not under review elsewhere.

Reviewers and editors

Reviewers who suspect overlap with another work must tell the editor, in confidence, and provide the reference. Editors do not alter or discard similarity reports and keep them with the editorial record.

Consequences

  • Minor overlap (unintentional, small): authors are asked to revise.
  • Substantial overlap or recycling: rejection, with a written explanation.
  • Severe or repeated cases, or plagiarism found after publication: the matter is investigated under the Allegations of Research Misconduct policy and may lead to retraction, and notice to the authors' institution and funders.