Plagiarism Policy

Detection of Plagiarism 

The Journal of Ayub Medical College Abbottabad requires a similarity index of 19% or less for acceptance of a submitted manuscript and uses the turnitin® software for detecting similarity indices. A similarity index of 19%-30% is required to be reviewed by author and a similarity index of 40% or more is deemed sufficient to reject the submitted manuscript.

Plagiarism Policy

The plagiarism policy of the JAMC is based on:

1: Guidelines for authors by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) website: http://www.icmje.org/

2: Guidelines for definition and description of plagiarism by the Higher Education Commission, Pakistan.

URL:http://www.hec.gov.pk/InsideHEC/Divisions/QALI/QADivision/Documents/Plagiarism%20Policy.pdf

  • All authors whose names appear on the manuscript are to be held responsible for intellectual integrity of the submitted manuscript. The Journal of Ayub Medical College requires all authors to acknowledge this fact and accept the responsibility for intellectual integrity of the manuscript in addition to declaring that no part of the submitted manuscript was plagiarized in any way.

  • The Journal of Ayub Medical College Abbottabad reserves the right to request any related material at any stage of the review process and requires authors to use referenced material according to the guidelines for authors by the JAMC. In order to reject the practice of “salami slicing” / duplicate publication / redundant publication, the JAMC has adopted a low threshold of disciplinary actions that range from rejection of the submitted manuscript to banning of the author(s) from future publications in the JAMC.

  • The JAMC doesn’t encourage “self-plagiarism” as well and it is considered as unethical as any other form of plagiarism. Any material sourced from the authors’ previous work, if not referenced properly, will be rejected.

  • According to the plagiarism policy, all submitted manuscripts will be checked for plagiarism by the turnitin software. A similarity index of 19% or less is required for acceptance into the review process. In case of similarity index more than 19%, the authors will be required to explain / correct the similarity index within a time frame of 30 days and till that time or till the resolution of the matter, the review process will be halted.

  • The editorial board of the JAMC will handle each plagiarized article / manuscript on a case to case basis and may or may not contact the head of the institution to which the author(s) belong(s). It is the discretion of the editorial board to inform the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) and / or Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC) in case of similarity indices of 40% or more. However, once an acceptable and appropriate explanation has been offered by the author for the increased similarity index of the submitted manuscript, the editor may decide to resume the review process after having the authors implement changes in manuscript as suggested by the editors.

  • In case where the author(s) do not respond in time or are unable to justify the increased similarity index of their manuscript, the manuscript will be discussed in a meeting of editorial board and further action will be decided. As mentioned above, the further action by the editorial board may range from rejection of the manuscript to banning the author(s) from publishing in the JAMC either for a stipulated period to an indefinite period. The editorial board will announce such decisions in the forth-coming issues of JAMC on a numbered page, clearly explaining the reasons for such action in addition to the biographical information of the authors.

  • In cases where a published article is proven to be plagiarized, the editor will be obliged to withdraw the article from the journal website, Medline and other indices and will announce the decision of withdrawal of the article, clearly citing plagiarism as the reason for doing so.