Plagiarism Policy

   The Caspian Journal of Environmental Sciences (CJES) adheres to the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines set forth by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). We accept all terms and conditions of COPE about plagiarism and in case, any attempt of plagiarism is brought to our attention accompanied by convincing evidence, we act based on flowcharts and workflows determined in COPE.

   The Editorial Boards of the Caspian Journal of Environmental Sciences (CJES) take the necessary measures to examine the incoming articles on their originality, reliability of contained information, and correct use of citations. The Editorial Board of the journal acknowledges that plagiarism is unacceptable and therefore establishes the following policies that state-specific actions (penalties) if plagiarism is identified in a manuscript submitted for publication in the journal. Authors should ensure that they submit only entirely original works. If they have used the work and/or statements of others, this must be appropriately cited or referenced. Plagiarism in any form, including quotations or paraphrasing of substantial parts of another’s article (without attribution), “passing off” another’s article as the author’s own, or claiming results from research conducted by others, constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. Manuscripts that are compilations of previously published materials of other authors (without their own creative and authoring interpretation) are not accepted for publication. It is unacceptable to use “unfair” text borrowing and assigning research results not belonging to the authors of the submitted manuscript. The authors must ensure that the submitted manuscript:

- describes completely the original work.

- is not plagiarism.

- has not been published before in any language.

- the information used or words from other publications are appropriately indicated by reference or indicated in the text.

    Existing copyright laws and conventions must be observed. Materials protected by copyright (for example, tables, figures, or large quotations) should only be reproduced with the permission of their owner. The Caspian Journal of Environmental Sciences (CJES) takes responsibility for assisting the scientific community in all aspects of publication ethics policy, particularly in the case of multiple submissions/publications and plagiarism. The editors reserve the right to check the received manuscripts for plagiarism. The manuscript submitted to the journal must have a similarity level of less than 10%. Similarity per each detected reference also must be a maximum of 1%. The textual similarity in the amount of more than 10% is unacceptable.

 

1. The Policy of Screening for Plagiarism

   All manuscripts must be free from plagiarism contents. All authors are advised to use plagiarism detection software to check similarity. Editors check the plagiarism detection of the manuscripts in this journal using Grammarly detection software (www.grammarly.com) and using the iThenticate. The journal will immediately reject articles leading to plagiarism or self-plagiarism. The journal adheres to international practices to prevent plagiarism. Thus, all authors who submit their manuscripts to the journal must check that their academic work respects the copyrights of other scholars and avoid any plagiarism. Once the manuscript is submitted to the journal, the editorial board will assign a group of anti-plagiarism members to check the manuscript through various tools. If proof of plagiarism is found, the manuscript will be rejected immediately, and the Editorial Board will communicate with the author to demand an explanation and the amendment of the plagiarized content. If the author does not respond within a reasonable length of time or does not make the necessary adjustments, they will not be able to submit manuscripts to the journal for a period of five (5) years. If the Editorial Board has reason to believe that the manuscript was not drafted or researched ethically, the journal’s implemented code of ethics (Committee on Publication Ethics [Code of Conduct and Best Practices Guidelines for Journals Editors]) will be reviewed and acted accordingly.

 
Definition of Plagiarism:

   "Plagiarism is the use of others’ published and unpublished ideas or words (or other intellectual property) without attribution or permission, and presenting them as new and original rather than derived from an existing source. The intent and effect of plagiarism are to mislead the reader as to the contributions of the plagiarizer. This applies whether the ideas or words are taken from abstracts, research grant applications, Institutional Review Board applications, or unpublished or published manuscripts in any publication format (print or electronic). Plagiarism is scientific misconduct and should be addressed as such. Self-plagiarism refers to the practice of an author using portions of their previous writings on the same topic in another of their publications, without specifically citing it formally in quotes. This practice is widespread and sometimes unintentional, as there are only so many ways to say the same thing on many occasions, particularly when writing the Methods section of an article. Although this usually violates the copyright that has been assigned to the publisher, there is no consensus as to whether this is a form of scientific misconduct, or how many of one’s own words one can use before it is truly "plagiarism." Probably, for this reason, self-plagiarism is not regarded in the same light as plagiarism of the ideas and words of other individuals. If journals have developed a policy on this matter, it should be clearly stated for authors." (WAME, 2020). Direct plagiarism is the plagiarism of the text. Mosaic plagiarism is the borrowing of ideas and opinions from a source and a few verbatim words or phrases without crediting the author. Plagiarism is committed when one author uses another work (typically the work of another author) without permission, credit, or acknowledgment. Plagiarism takes different forms, from literal copying to paraphrasing the work of another. Authors can adhere to the following steps to report plagiarism:

• Inform the editor of the journal where a plagiarized article is published.
• Send original and plagiarized articles with plagiarized parts highlighted.
• If evidence of plagiarism is convincing, the editor should arrange for a disciplinary meeting.
• The editor of the journal where the plagiarized article should communicate with the editor of the journal containing the original article to rectify the matter.
• The plagiarist should be asked to explain.
• In case of nonresponse in the stipulated time or an unsatisfactory explanation, the article should be permanently retracted.
• The author should be blacklisted and debarred for submitting an article to a particular journal for at least 5 years.
• The head of the institution concerned has to be notified.

   The author bears the responsibility for checking whether the material submitted is subject to copyright or ownership rights, e.g., figures, tables, photographs, illustrations, trade literature, and data. The author will need to obtain permission to reproduce any such items and include these permissions with their final submission. Where use is so restricted, the editorial office and Publisher must be informed of the final submission of the material. Please add any necessary acknowledgments to the typescript, preferably in the form of an Acknowledgments section at the end of the article. Credit the source and copyright of photographs, figures, illustrations, etc. in the supplementary captions. Plagiarism is an act intentionally or unintentionally in obtaining or trying to obtain credit or value for scientific work, by quoting part or all of the work and/or scientific work of other parties that are recognized as scientific works, without expressing the source appropriately and adequately. Therefore, manuscripts must be original, never published, and not in the process of waiting for publication elsewhere. Material taken verbally from other sources needs to be clearly identified so that it is different from the original text. If plagiarism is identified, the Editor-in-Chief is responsible for reviewing the manuscript and will approve the action according to the level of plagiarism detected, with the following guidelines.

 

Plagiarism Level

1. Tracing a portion of a short sentence from another article without mentioning the source.
   Action: Authors are given warnings and requests to change the text and quote correctly.
2. Tracing most of the other articles without the right quote and not mentioning the source.
   Actions: The submitted manuscript is rejected for publication in the Caspian Journal of Environmental Sciences (CJES) and the Author can be sanctioned for not being allowed to publish in the journal.
3. All the authors of a manuscript are responsible for the content of the manuscript they submit to the journal. If a manuscript is found to contain plagiarism, all authors will face the same consequences.
4. If the author is proven to submit the manuscript to the journal by simultaneously sending it to another journal, and this overlap is found during the reviewer process or after publication, then the action according to point 2 above is given.
5. If plagiarism is found outside the rules above, the editor of the journal has the right to give sanctions according to the editor’s team policy.
6. In the case of multiple borrowing, the Editorial Board acts according to the rules of COPE.

There are several indicators of plagiarism that all authors must be aware of:

• The most easily identifiable plagiarism is that of repeated content when an author copies another author’s work by reciting words, sentences, or paragraphs without citing sources. This plagiarism model can be easily identified by our plagiarism checker software.
• The second type of plagiarism occurs when an author reproduces a substantial part of another writer’s work, without citing him/her. The term "reproducing substance" here can be understood as copying another’s ideas, both in terms of quantity and quality, which potentially eliminates the original author’s rights, in the context of intellectual property.
• The third type of plagiarism is when an author takes ideas, words, or phrases in paraphrased sentences or paragraphs, without citing the source. This type of plagiarism often cannot be checked through plagiarism software, as it is idea-based. Yet, this practice becomes unethical when the author does not cite, nor acknowledge the source from the original writer.

 

2. Responding to Allegations of Possible Misconduct

Definitions of Misconduct

   Deception may be deliberate, by reckless disregard of possible consequences, or by ignorance. Since the underlying goal of misconduct is to deliberately deceive others as to the truth, the journal’s preliminary investigation of potential misconduct must take into account not only the particular act or omission but also the apparent intention (as best it can be determined) of the person involved. Misconduct does not include unintentional errors. The most common forms of scientific misconduct include:

• Falsification of data: ranges from fabrication to deceptive selective reporting of findings and omission of conflicting data, or willful suppression and/or distortion of data.
• Plagiarism: The appropriation of the language, ideas, or thoughts of another without crediting their true source, and representation of them as one’s original work (see prior section).
• Improprieties of authorship: Improper assignment of credit, such as excluding others, misrepresentation of the same material as original in more than one publication, the inclusion of individuals as authors who have not contributed to the work published; or submission of multi-authored publications without the concurrence of all authors.
• Misappropriation of the ideas of others: an important aspect of scholarly activity is the exchange of ideas among colleagues. Scholars can acquire novel ideas from others during the process of reviewing grant applications and manuscripts. However, improper use of such information can constitute fraud. Wholesale appropriation of such material constitutes misconduct.
• Violation of generally accepted research practices: Serious deviation from accepted practices in proposing or carrying out research, improper manipulation of experiments to obtain biased results, deceptive statistical or analytical manipulations, or improper reporting of results.
• Material failure to comply with legislative and regulatory requirements affecting research: Including but not limited to serious or substantial, repeated, willful violations of applicable local regulations and law involving the use of funds, care of animals, human subjects, investigational drugs, recombinant products, new devices, or radioactive, biologic, or chemical materials.
• Inappropriate behavior in relation to misconduct: this includes unfounded or knowingly false accusations of misconduct, failure to report known or suspected misconduct, withholding or destruction of information relevant to a claim of misconduct, and retaliation against persons involved in the allegation or investigation. This includes qualifications, experience, or research accomplishments to advance the research program, to obtain external funding, or for other professional advancements.

 

3. Responses to Possible Misconduct

   A committee consisting of the editor-in-chief and editorial board members, as determined by the editor-in-chief, who has specific expertise in the area being investigated, will investigate misconduct allegations. The suitable actions were taken based on the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). The Caspian Journal of Environmental Sciences (CJES) follows the policies and guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and abides by its Code of Conduct in dealing with potential cases of misconduct.