Plagiarism Policy

PPMJ follows the ICMJE and HEC guidelines/criteria for all types of plagiarism. The same can be accessed at www.icmje.org, and www.hec.gov.pk . All the submitted manuscripts are subjected to plagiarism checking through the software Turnitin (courtesy HEC). Manuscripts with similarity index more than 19% are not processed further unless rectified. It is the authors' responsibility to apprise themselves of plagiarism in any form including paraphrasing and self-plagiarism. Manuscripts submitted to PPMJ can be sent to HEC, other medical journals' editors and international agencies for authentication of originality. The disciplinary committee of PPMJ would deal with cases of plagiarism and comprise of the staff, editors and the Chief Editor or his representative.

For a plagiarized article (multiple submissions) in processing, the identification of act will lead to dropping of article from further processing / consideration of publication. The corresponding author will be required to give an explanation on demand. In case of an unsatisfactory reply, the matter will be referred to the disciplinary committee that may decide the course of action. For a published articles, the allegedly plagiarized article will be temporarily retracted from publication and a notice to the effect will be published in the PPMJ. The author will be served an explanation demand. In case of non-response in the stipulated time or unsatisfactory explanation, the article will be permanently retracted and the author will be blacklisted. HEC and author's institute will also be notified. In case of multiple submissions, other editors will also be informed. The author(s) will have to provide documentary proof of retraction from publication, if such a defense is pleaded. Those claiming intellectual / idea or data theft of an article must provide documentary proof in their claim.