• All articles submitted to ABMS are subjected to check by Turnitin for similarity index as part of plagiarism testing. ABMS follows the standard definition and description of plagiarism which is “the appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit” and we endorse Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE), ICMJE, Pakistan Association of Medical Editors (PAME), Higher Education Commission (HEC) policies regarding plagiarism available on www.cope.org, www.icmje.org and www.hec.gov.pk.
• The intellectual contribution and originality of every article are to be defined by the authors and this is the responsibility of authors to be aware of various forms of plagiarism like plagiarism of ideas, text, paraphrasing, self-plagiarism including redundant/duplicate publication, salami-slicing (data fragmentation) and text recycling, etc. ignorance regarding plagiarism and its various forms will not be considered as an excuse.
• Any manuscript submitted for publication, a manuscript accepted for publication, or even an article that has already been published in the journal later found to be plagiarized, shall be dealt with as per COPE guidelines. https://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts/plagiarism-submitted-manuscript
• Editorial Board will immediately stop the processing/ publication of the article and will check the degree of copying.
• In a clear case of plagiarism, the authors shall be contacted with all relevant documents. The corresponding author will be required to respond with an explanation within 30 days of receiving the letter from the editor.
• In case an acceptable explanation is provided by the author(s), the ABMS editorial board may recommend appropriate changes after which the review process for the submitted manuscript may commence.
• In case of non-response in the stipulated time or unsatisfactory explanation, the ABMS editorial board will decide regarding the fate of the article and authors including
  • Rejection of the manuscript,
  • Withdrawal of already published article (as the case may be)
  • Debarment of the authors(s) from further publication in the ABMS for one year or permanent depending upon the nature of the offense.
  • The author will be on the watch.
  • HEC, PMDC, PAME, and the author’s institute will also be notified for information and possible action.
  • In case of minor copying again authors shall be contacted asking to rephrase the portions and appropriate referencing. Once an appropriate response is received the procedure shall be restarted. In case of no response within the stipulated time, the reviewers shall be informed and the paper stopped from publication.

• In the case of multiple submissions in different journals, editors of these journals shall also be informed. The author(s) will have to provide documentary proof of retraction from a publication either if such a defense is pleaded.
• Those claiming intellectual/idea or data theft of an article must provide documentary proof in their claim.

The following types of plagiarism are considered by the journal:

• Full Plagiarism: Previously published content without any changes to the text, idea, and grammar is considered full plagiarism. It involves presenting exact text from a source as one’s own.
• Partial Plagiarism: If the content is a mixture from multiple different sources, where the author has extensively rephrased text, then it is known as partial plagiarism.
• Self-Plagiarism: When an author reuses complete or portions of their pre-published research, then it is known as self-plagiarism. Complete self-plagiarism is a case when an author republishes their own previously published work in a new journal. Self-plagiarism is a related issue. In this document, we define self-plagiarism as the verbatim or near-verbatim reuse of significant portions of one's own copyrighted work without citing the original source. Note that self-plagiarism does not apply to publications based on the author's own previously copyrighted work (e.g., appearing in conference proceedings) where an explicit reference is made to the prior publication. Such reuse does not require quotation marks to delineate the reused text but does require that the source be cited.

 How is Plagiarism Handled?

The manuscripts in which plagiarism is detected are categorized on the extent of the similarity index.

Similarity index <19%: The manuscript is sent for the review process

Similarity index between 19-30%: The manuscript is sent back to the author for content revision.

>30% Similarity index: The manuscript is rejected without review. The authors are advised to revise the manuscript and resubmit the manuscript.