Plagiarism Policy

The JAGA Editorial Board acknowledges that plagiarism is unacceptable and therefore establishes the following policy stating specific actions (penalties) when plagiarism is identified in articles submitted for publication in JAGA. JAGA will use Turnitin plagiarism detection software as our tool in detecting text similarity in articles. A maximum of 25% similarity is permitted.

Definition: Plagiarism involves “the use or imitation of another author's language and ideas and their representation as one's own original work.”

Policy: Papers must be original, unpublished, and not awaiting publication elsewhere. Any material taken verbatim from another source must be clearly identified as distinct from the original text.

Any text exceeding the standard of fair use (defined here as more than two or three sentences or the equivalent thereof) or graphic material reproduced from another source requires permission from the copyright holder and, where possible, the original author also requires identification of the source; e.g., previous publication.

When plagiarism is identified, the Editor in Chief is responsible for reviewing the paper and will approve measures appropriate to the level of plagiarism detected in the paper in accordance with the following guidelines:

Plagiarism Level

• Minor: A short section of another article was plagiarized without any significant data or ideas being taken from another paper. Action: A warning was issued to the author and a request was made to amend the text and correctly cite the original article.
• Medium: Most of the paper was copied without proper citation of the original paper. Action: The submitted article was rejected and the author was banned from submitting further articles for one year.
• Severe: Most plagiarized papers involve reproducing original results or ideas presented in other publications. Outcome: The paper was rejected and the author was banned from submitting further articles for five years.

It is understood that all authors are responsible for the content of the papers they submit because they have all read and understood JAGA's Copyright and Licensing Terms. If penalties are imposed for plagiarism, all authors will be subject to the same penalties.

If a second case of plagiarism by the same author is identified, a decision on the action to be taken will be made by the Editorial Board (Editor-in-Chief and Editorial members). The author will be permanently barred from submitting further articles.

This policy also applies to material reproduced from other publications by the same author. If an author uses text or images that have been previously published, the corresponding paragraphs or figures must be identified and the previous publication referenced. It is understood that in the case of review papers or tutorial papers, much of the material may have been previously published.

Authors must identify the source of previously published material and obtain permission from the original author and publisher. If an author submits a manuscript to JAGA with significant overlap with a manuscript submitted to another journal simultaneously, and this overlap is discovered during the review process or after the publication of both papers, the editor of the other journal will be notified and the case will be treated as a case of severe plagiarism. Significant overlap means the use of identical or nearly identical figures and identical or slightly modified text for half of the paper or more. For plagiarism of less than half of the paper but more than one-tenth of the paper, the case should be treated as moderate plagiarism. If the plagiarism is limited to the methods section, the case should be considered minor plagiarism.

If an author uses previously published material to clarify the presentation of new results, the previously published material must be identified and the differences for this publication must be mentioned. Permission to republish must be obtained from the copyright holder. In the case of manuscripts that were originally published in conference proceedings and then submitted for publication in JAGA either in identical or expanded form, authors must identify the name of the conference proceedings and the date of publication and obtain permission to republish from the copyright holder. The editor may decide not to accept these papers for publication.

However, authors are permitted to use material from unpublished presentations, including visual displays, in subsequent journal publications. In the case of submissions that were originally published in another language, the title, date, and original publication journal must be identified by the author, and copyright must be obtained. Editors may accept such translations to attract a wider audience. The editor may select certain published papers (e.g., “historical” papers) for republication that provide a better perspective than a series of papers published in a single issue of JAGA. These republications must be clearly identified with the date and journal of the original publication, and permission must be obtained from the author(s) and publisher.

The JAGA Journal layout editor is responsible for maintaining a list of penalized authors and will check that no authors of submitted papers are on this list. If a banned author is identified, the layout editor will notify the Editor-in-Chief, who will take appropriate action. This policy will be posted on the website with instructions for submitting manuscripts, and a copy will be sent to authors with a confirmation email after initial acceptance of their original manuscript.