As JMRT enters into its sixth year, the challenging process of reviewing contributions to evaluate their originality and value, taken on by our Editors and a growing global network of reviewers, continues. Indeed, the number of submissions is growing steadily, and is expected to exceed 1000 in 2018; we will be able to accept, after a rigorous review, a small fraction of these. A problem that has been plaguing this and other journals is plagiarism.
Plagiarism occurs when one author or group of authors deliberately uses another's work without permission, credit, or acknowledgment. There are essentially four classes, as presented by Elsevier [1]:
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Literal copying
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Substantial copying
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Paraphrasing
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Text-recycling (from the authors earlier contributions)
We have also detected a fifth class:
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Figure or Table recycling
These are all unethical behaviors and, in the most severe cases, punishable by law.
Anything taken from another source should be put in quotes (“…”) with the appropriate reference. This includes the authors own work. In both Original Article and Short Communication, original figures or tables in the section of Results and Discussion cannot be published with data already in another paper with active DOI. This also applies for results indicated as original in Review Articles.
We are currently using an Elsevier software that is the first stage in evaluating a paper. This journal is introducing a policy of creating a database of authors who have engaged in plagiarism. Starting in 2018, these authors will be barred from submitting any further contributions to JMRT.
Prospective authors should read the policies of Elsevier regarding publication ethics [1–3].
