PLAGIARISM POLICY

The Editorial Team of the “Journal of Water and Land Development” (JWLD) is strictly against any unethical act of copying or plagiarism in any form. According to Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) plagiarism is defined as: When somebody presents the work of others (data, words or theories) as if they were his/her own and without proper acknowledgement. Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). All manuscripts submitted for publication to JWLD are cross-checked for plagiarism using iThenticate/Turnitin software.
Plagiarism is the unethical act of copying someone else's prior ideas, processes, results or words without explicit acknowledgement of the original author and source. Self-plagiarism occurs when an author utilises a large part of his/her own previously published work without using appropriate references. This can range from getting the same manuscript published in multiple journals to modifying a previously published manuscript with some new data.
Manuscripts found to be plagiarised (overall similarity index of the manuscript should not be more than 15% for research articles and 20% for review articles with a limitation of less than 3% similarity from any individual source) during initial stages of review are out-rightly rejected and not considered for publication in the journal. In case a manuscript is found to be plagiarised after publication, the Editor-in-Chief will conduct a preliminary investigation, may be with the help of a suitable committee constituted for the purpose.
If the manuscript is found to be plagiarised beyond the acceptable limits, the journal will contact the author's Institute / College / University and Funding Agency, if any. A determination of misconduct will lead JWLD to run a statement bi-directionally linked online to and from the original paper, to note the plagiarism and provide a reference to the plagiarised material.
The paper containing the plagiarism will also be marked on each page of the PDF. Upon determination of the extent of plagiarism, the paper may also be formally retracted.

Types of Plagiarism

The following types of plagiarism are considered by JWLD:

Full Plagiarism: Previously published content without any changes to the text, idea and grammar is considered as full plagiarism. It involves presenting exact text from a source as one's own.
Partial Plagiarism: If 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.

JWLD respects intellectual property and aims at protecting and promoting original work of its authors. Manuscripts containing plagiarised material are against the standards of quality, research and innovation. Hence, all authors submitting articles to JWLD are expected to abide by ethical standards and abstain from plagiarism, in any form.

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.

In case, an author is found to be suspected of plagiarism in a submitted or published manuscript then, JWLD shall contact the author(s) to submit his/her/their explanation within two weeks, which may be forwarded to the special commission constituted for the purpose, for further course of action. If JWLD does not receive any response from the author within the stipulated time period, then the Director / Dean / Head of the concerned College, Institution or Organization or the Vice Chancellor of the University to which the author is affiliated shall be contacted to take strict action against the concerned author.

JWLD shall take serious action against published manuscripts found to contain plagiarism and shall completely remove them from the JWLD website and other third party websites where the paper is listed and indexed. The moment, any article published in the JWLD database is reported to be plagiarised, JWLD will constitute a special commission to investigate the same. Upon having established that the manuscript is plagiarised from some previously published work, JWLD shall support the original author and manuscript irrespective of the publisher and may take any or all of the following immediate actions or follow the additional courses of actions*:

JWLD editorial office shall immediately contact the Director / Dean / Head of the concerned College, Institution or Organization or the Vice Chancellor of the University to which the author(s) is (are) affiliated to take strict action against the concerned author.
JWLD shall change the PDF copy of the published manuscript from the website and the term Retraction shall be appended to the published manuscript title.
JWLD shall disable the author account with the journal and reject all future submissions from the author for a period of 03 / 05 / 10 years or even ban the authors permanently.

*Any additional courses of action, as recommended by the commission or as deemed fit for the instant case or as decided by the Editor-in-Chief, implemented from time to time.