Plagiarism Policy

MJHAS is strictly against any unethical act of copying or plagiarism in any form. Plagiarism is said to have occurred when large portions of a manuscript have been copied from existing, previously published resources. All manuscripts submitted for publication in the journal are cross-checked for plagiarism using Turnitin Plagiarism Detection Software. Manuscripts found to be plagiarized during the initial stages of review are outright rejected and not considered for publication in the journal. We do not process any plagiarised content. If a manuscript has a similarity index of over 20% and references sources with more than 5% plagiarism based on the results of the Plagiarism Checker, we will reject the manuscript and send it back to the author to be revised for the plagiarised contents. In case a manuscript is found to be plagiarized after publication, the Editor-in-Chief will conduct a preliminary investigation, maybe with the help of a suitable committee constituted for the purpose. If the manuscript is found to have been plagiarized beyond acceptable limits, the journal will contact the author’s institute, college, or university and the funding agency, if any. A determination of misconduct will lead the journal to run a statement bi-directionally linked online to and from the original paper to note the plagiarism and provide a reference to the plagiarized 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 the journal:

Full Plagiarism: Previously published content without any changes to the text, idea, or 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.

Policy and Action for Plagiarism

MJHAS respects intellectual property and aims to protect and promote the original work of its authors. Manuscripts containing plagiarized material are against the standards of quality, research, and innovation. Hence, all authors submitting articles to journals are expected to abide by ethical standards and abstain from plagiarism in any form. In case, an author is found to be suspected of plagiarism in a submitted or published manuscript, the journal shall contact the author(s) to submit his / her explanation within two weeks, which may be forwarded to the Fact Finding Committee (FFC) constituted for the purpose of further action. If the journal does not receive any response from the author within the stipulated time period, then the director, dean, or 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.

MJHAS shall take serious action against published manuscripts found to contain plagiarism and shall completely remove them from the Journal website and other third-party websites where the paper is listed and indexed. The moment any article published in the journal database is reported to be plagiarized, MJHAS will constitute a Fact Finding Committee (FFC) to investigate the same. Upon having established that the manuscript is plagiarized from some previously published work, MJHAS 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 course of action as recommended by the committee:

  • The MJHAS editorial office shall immediately contact the director, dean, or head of the concerned college, institution, or organization, or the vice-chancellor of the university to which the author(s) are affiliated, to take strict action against the concerned author.
  • MJHAS shall remove the PDF copy of the published manuscript from the website and disable all links to full-text articles. The term plagiarized manuscript shall be appended to the published manuscript title.
  • MJHAS shall disable the author's account with the journal and reject all future submissions from the author for a period of 03, 05, or 10 years, or even ban the authors permanently.
  • MJHAS may also display the list of such authors along with their full contact details on the journal website.
  • Any other course of action, as recommended by the Committee, as deemed fit for the instant case, or as decided by the Editorial Board from time to time.