24. Plagiarism & Similarity Policy

24. Plagiarism & Similarity Policy

The Pakistan Journal of Gastroenterology (PJG) is committed to maintaining the highest standards of academic integrity, originality, and ethical publishing. All manuscripts submitted to the journal must represent original work and must not contain plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, duplicate publication, or any other form of research misconduct.

All submitted manuscripts undergo similarity screening using recognized plagiarism detection software before editorial evaluation and peer review. The similarity assessment is conducted to identify overlapping text and ensure compliance with accepted standards of scholarly publishing.

A similarity report alone does not determine the originality of a manuscript. The Editorial Office evaluates both the overall similarity index and the nature of the matched content. Properly quoted material, references, standard methodological descriptions, and legally reproduced content may not be considered plagiarism when appropriately cited.

Authors are responsible for ensuring that all ideas, data, figures, tables, and text obtained from other sources are properly acknowledged and cited.

Manuscripts containing evidence of plagiarism, duplicate publication, fabricated data, falsified results, image manipulation, or other forms of publication misconduct may be rejected at any stage of the editorial or peer review process. If such misconduct is identified after publication, the journal may issue a correction, expression of concern, or retraction in accordance with its publication ethics policy.

Authors may be asked to revise and reduce unnecessary textual similarity before their manuscript proceeds to peer review.

Types of Publication Misconduct

The journal considers the following practices unacceptable:

  • Plagiarism.
  • Self-plagiarism or redundant publication.
  • Duplicate or simultaneous submission to multiple journals.
  • Data fabrication or falsification.
  • Image manipulation intended to mislead.
  • Inappropriate authorship or guest authorship.
  • Citation manipulation.
  • Failure to disclose conflicts of interest.

Author Responsibilities

Authors should ensure that:

  • The manuscript is original and unpublished.
  • All sources are appropriately cited.
  • Permission has been obtained for copyrighted material where required.
  • The manuscript is not under consideration by another journal.
  • All authors have approved the submitted version.

Editorial Action

Where concerns regarding plagiarism or research misconduct arise, the Editorial Office may:

  • Request clarification from the authors.
  • Request revision of the manuscript.
  • Reject the manuscript.
  • Notify the authors' institution where appropriate.
  • Retract a published article in accordance with the journal's publication ethics policy.

Notes

  • Similarity screening is conducted for all submitted manuscripts.
  • Proper citation and referencing are essential to avoid plagiarism.
  • Authors remain fully responsible for the originality and authenticity of their work.

Editorial Tip

Authors are encouraged to carefully review their manuscripts before submission and ensure that all borrowed ideas, text, figures, and data are appropriately acknowledged. Maintaining originality and transparency strengthens scientific credibility and supports responsible research publishing.