Plagiarism Policy

International Journal of Pharmaceutical Creativity and Innovation (IJPCI)

Academic Integrity, Originality and Ethical Publishing Policy

The International Journal of Pharmaceutical Creativity and Innovation (IJPCI) is committed to maintaining the highest standards of academic integrity, originality, transparency, responsible research, and ethical scholarly publishing. The journal strictly prohibits plagiarism, duplicate publication, fabrication, falsification, copyright infringement, unethical authorship, and other forms of research or publication misconduct.

Authors are expected to submit only original scholarly work that has been prepared through responsible research practices and that has not been copied, fabricated, falsified, improperly reproduced, or simultaneously submitted to another journal.

IJPCI maintains a rigorous editorial and peer-review process. Similarity reports, citation practices, authorship declarations, research ethics, copyright compliance, data integrity, and responsible use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) may all be considered during editorial evaluation.

Definition of Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the presentation of another person's words, ideas, data, figures, tables, concepts, methods, interpretations, or other intellectual contributions as one's own without appropriate acknowledgment.

Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to:

• Copying text, ideas, figures, tables, images, or data from published or unpublished sources without proper acknowledgment.
• Presenting another person's research findings, concepts, interpretations, or intellectual contribution as one's own.
• Submitting material that substantially overlaps with previously published work without appropriate citation and disclosure.
• Using another author's wording without quotation or proper attribution.
• Improper paraphrasing in which the original structure, wording, or ideas remain substantially unchanged.
• Copying or reproducing figures, diagrams, photographs, tables, datasets, or graphical material without appropriate attribution or permission where required.
• Using unpublished research, manuscripts, theses, dissertations, reports, or conference materials without permission and acknowledgment.
• Self-plagiarism, duplicate publication, and redundant publication.
• Reusing substantial portions of one's previously published work without appropriate citation and disclosure.
• Submitting the same or substantially similar manuscript to more than one journal simultaneously.
• Using AI-generated material without appropriate human verification and disclosure where disclosure is required.

Types of Plagiarism

Direct or Verbatim Plagiarism

Direct plagiarism occurs when text is copied word-for-word from another source without quotation marks and appropriate citation. For example, copying a paragraph from a published pharmaceutical research article and presenting it as original writing is considered plagiarism.

Mosaic or Patchwork Plagiarism

Mosaic plagiarism occurs when phrases, sentence structures, or passages from multiple sources are combined with minor modifications while retaining the original intellectual structure without adequate attribution.

Paraphrasing Plagiarism

Paraphrasing plagiarism occurs when an author changes a few words or rearranges sentences from an original source but fails to provide appropriate citation. Proper paraphrasing requires genuine rewriting in the author's own scholarly expression together with acknowledgment of the original source.

Idea Plagiarism

Idea plagiarism occurs when an author presents another researcher's unique concept, hypothesis, theoretical framework, methodology, interpretation, or intellectual contribution as their own without acknowledgment.

Data and Figure Plagiarism

Data plagiarism includes unauthorized use or presentation of another researcher's datasets, tables, graphs, images, experimental results, or statistical findings as original work.

Self-Plagiarism

Self-plagiarism occurs when authors reuse substantial portions of their own previously published work without appropriate citation, disclosure, or justification. Reuse of previously published material must be transparent and must not mislead readers regarding the originality of the submitted manuscript.

Plagiarism Screening

All manuscripts submitted to IJPCI may undergo plagiarism and similarity screening using recognized similarity-detection software before or during editorial evaluation.

The editorial office may examine similarity reports for:

• Direct copying of text.
• Improper paraphrasing.
• Missing or inadequate citations.
• Duplicate or redundant publication.
• Self-plagiarism.
• Potential copyright infringement.
• Substantial overlap with previously published literature.
• Unattributed reuse of figures, tables, images, datasets, or other intellectual material.

The similarity percentage alone does not establish plagiarism. Editorial assessment will consider the source, location, nature, extent, context, citation status, and originality of the overlapping material.

Acceptable Similarity Limit

As an IJPCI editorial policy, the journal expects the overall similarity of a submitted manuscript to be below 10%, excluding legitimate references, bibliography entries, properly identified quotations, and unavoidable technical or scientific terminology where applicable.

The 10% threshold is an IJPCI editorial requirement.

Authors should therefore aim for genuinely original scholarly writing rather than merely attempting to achieve a particular similarity percentage.

• Below 10%: Normally acceptable for initial similarity screening, subject to editorial assessment.
• 10%–20%: May require editorial examination, correction, citation, or revision depending on the source and nature of overlap.
• Above 20%: May result in a request for substantial revision or rejection where the overlap is significant or inadequately attributed.
• Any serious unattributed copying: May lead to rejection regardless of the overall similarity percentage.

A manuscript with 5% similarity may still constitute plagiarism if the 5% represents copied original ideas, text, data, figures, or findings without attribution. Conversely, a higher similarity score may sometimes arise from references, standardized methodology, technical terminology, or properly cited material. Therefore, editorial judgment remains decisive.

Examples of Plagiarism That May Lead to Rejection

• Copying an entire paragraph from another article without citation.
• Changing only a few words in a published paragraph and presenting it as original.
• Using another researcher's table or figure without attribution.
• Using another researcher's experimental results or dataset without acknowledgment.
• Submitting a previously published article as a new manuscript.
• Submitting substantially the same manuscript to two journals simultaneously.
• Reusing substantial portions of an author's previous publication without citation or disclosure.
• Inventing citations to make copied material appear appropriately referenced.
• Using AI-generated references that have not been independently verified.
• Fabricating data, statistical results, research participants, experiments, or findings.

Editorial Actions for Plagiarism

If plagiarism or serious similarity concerns are identified before publication, IJPCI may take one or more of the following actions depending on the severity and circumstances:

• Request clarification from the corresponding author.
• Request revision and appropriate citation.
• Return the manuscript for correction.
• Place the manuscript on editorial hold.
• Require a revised similarity report.
• Reject the manuscript.
• Reject the manuscript immediately in cases of serious plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, or deliberate misconduct.
• Restrict future submissions where repeated or serious misconduct is established.
• Notify the author's institution or other appropriate authority where serious misconduct warrants such action.

Post-Publication Plagiarism and Research Misconduct

If plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, copyright infringement, or another serious publication-ethics violation is discovered after publication, IJPCI may investigate the matter and take appropriate corrective action.

• Correction or erratum.
• Expression of concern.
• Retraction of the published article.
• Removal or withdrawal where justified.
• Notification of the author's institution or funding body where appropriate.
• Restriction of future submissions in cases of serious or repeated misconduct.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy

IJPCI recognizes that Artificial Intelligence and AI-assisted technologies can support researchers in literature organization, language improvement, data-analysis workflows, research planning, and other legitimate scholarly activities. However, AI must not replace the author's intellectual contribution, scientific judgment, critical evaluation, responsibility, or accountability.

Current scholarly publishing guidance emphasizes human oversight and requires authors to verify AI-generated material, including references and factual claims. Authors remain responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, and legality of the submitted work.

Permitted Uses of AI

Subject to responsible human oversight, AI tools may be used for activities such as:

• Improving grammar, spelling, punctuation, and readability.
• Assisting with organization or restructuring of author-written material.
• Supporting literature-search preparation or identifying potential research themes.
• Assisting with coding or computational workflows where the use is properly verified and documented.
• Supporting data-analysis procedures where appropriate and where the methodology remains scientifically controlled by the researchers.
• Assisting with translation, provided the translated material is carefully reviewed by the authors.
• Generating preliminary ideas that are subsequently independently developed and verified by the authors.

Basic spelling, grammar, and punctuation checks generally do not require a separate AI declaration under current Elsevier journal guidance. However, substantive AI assistance that changes sentence structure, organization, or generates content should be disclosed where required.

Prohibited or Unacceptable Uses of AI

Authors must not use AI systems to:

• Generate fabricated research data.
• Invent participants, experiments, observations, measurements, or results.
• Alter research findings to produce a desired conclusion.
• Generate fake or unverifiable references.
• Misrepresent AI-generated content as independently conducted scientific analysis.
• Generate substantial manuscript content without meaningful author intellectual contribution and appropriate disclosure.
• Generate or manipulate scientific images in a way that misrepresents research results.
• Produce false citations or misleading evidence.
• Upload confidential, unpublished, proprietary, or personally identifiable research material to AI systems without ensuring appropriate privacy and intellectual-property protection.

Current publisher guidance specifically warns that AI-generated references may be incorrect or fabricated and that authors must independently verify them.

AI Authorship Policy

Artificial Intelligence tools cannot be listed as authors or co-authors of an IJPCI manuscript. Authorship requires human responsibility, accountability, approval of the final manuscript, and the ability to address questions concerning the integrity of the research.

Authors remain fully responsible for all content submitted to the journal, regardless of whether any portion of the manuscript was prepared with AI assistance.

AI Disclosure Requirement

Where generative AI or AI-assisted technologies have been used in manuscript preparation beyond basic spelling, grammar, or punctuation checking, authors should provide a clear disclosure describing the tool used, its purpose, and the extent of human review and oversight.

Recommended declaration format:

If AI tools are used as part of the actual research methodology, including data analysis, coding, image processing, or other research procedures, the relevant use should be described in the Methods section where scientifically appropriate.

Author Responsibility for AI-Generated Content

Authors are personally and collectively responsible for checking all AI-assisted content before submission. This includes verification of factual claims, scientific statements, statistical interpretations, references, citations, quotations, tables, figures, and conclusions.

Authors must not assume that AI-generated information is accurate merely because it is presented in authoritative or academic language. Any inaccurate, fabricated, misleading, or unverifiable content remains the responsibility of the authors.

Copyright and Intellectual Property Policy

Authors must ensure that submitted manuscripts do not infringe the copyright, trademark, patent, database rights, privacy rights, or other intellectual-property rights of third parties.

Authors are responsible for:

• Obtaining permission to reproduce copyrighted figures, photographs, tables, questionnaires, instruments, or other protected materials where permission is required.
• Providing appropriate attribution for third-party material.
• Clearly identifying material reproduced or adapted from another publication.
• Ensuring that images and graphical material are legally available for publication.
• Ensuring that AI-generated or AI-assisted material does not infringe third-party rights.
• Obtaining appropriate consent where identifiable individuals or protected personal information appear in research materials.

Copyright infringement may be treated as a publication-ethics violation independently of the similarity percentage. A manuscript can therefore be rejected even where its overall similarity score is below 10% if it contains unauthorized reproduction of protected material.

Referencing and Citation Policy

Authors must provide accurate, complete, and consistent citations for all sources that contribute to the manuscript. Every source cited in the text should appear in the reference list, and every reference included in the reference list should be appropriately cited within the manuscript, except where the chosen citation system provides a specific exception.

References must be authentic, traceable, and relevant to the claims they support. Authors are responsible for checking bibliographic details, DOI information where applicable, publication titles, author names, publication years, page information, and URLs where required.

Permitted Referencing Styles

IJPCI accepts recognized and consistently applied academic referencing systems, subject to the requirements specified for the particular article type or discipline. Authors may use:

• APA Style – 7th Edition
• MLA Style
• Chicago Style
• Other recognized discipline-specific citation styles, where appropriate and approved by the journal.

Authors must not mix citation systems inconsistently within the same manuscript. The selected style should be applied consistently to in-text citations, footnotes where applicable, and the final reference list.

Examples of Proper and Improper Referencing

Improper: An author takes a published statement, changes two or three words, removes the original author's name, and presents the sentence as an original statement.

Proper: The author substantially rewrites the concept in their own scholarly language and cites the original publication.

Improper: A figure from another research article is reproduced without attribution or permission where permission is required.

Proper: The figure is cited, identified as reproduced or adapted, and appropriate permission is obtained where legally necessary.

Improper: An AI system generates five references and the author inserts them without checking whether the papers actually exist.

Proper: The author independently verifies every reference against a reliable scholarly source before including it in the manuscript.

Fabrication and Falsification

IJPCI strictly prohibits fabrication and falsification of research.

• Fabrication: Making up data, participants, experiments, observations, references, results, or other research information that never existed.
• Falsification: Manipulating research materials, procedures, data, images, results, or reporting in a manner that misrepresents the research record.

Fabrication or falsification may result in immediate rejection and, where discovered after publication, may result in correction, expression of concern, retraction, and notification of appropriate institutions or authorities.

Duplicate and Simultaneous Submission

IJPCI does not accept:

• Previously published manuscripts submitted as original work.
• The same manuscript submitted simultaneously to multiple journals.
• Substantially overlapping publications presented as independent original research.
• Redundant publication without transparent disclosure and appropriate justification.

Authors must disclose any related manuscripts, conference papers, preprints, datasets, dissertations, or previously published materials that substantially overlap with the submitted manuscript.

Author Responsibilities

Every submitting author is responsible for ensuring that:

• The manuscript is original.
• The research has been conducted ethically.
• All sources have been properly cited.
• All quotations and reproduced material are properly identified.
• Copyright permissions have been obtained where required.
• All authors have made legitimate contributions and approved the final manuscript.
• The manuscript is not under consideration elsewhere.
• Research data and results have not been fabricated or falsified.
• AI use has been responsibly managed and disclosed where required.
• All AI-generated references or factual claims have been independently verified.
• Conflict-of-interest information has been disclosed.
• Ethical approval and informed consent requirements have been satisfied where applicable.

Consequences of Inadequate Referencing

Failure to provide proper references can constitute plagiarism, intellectual-property infringement, or research misconduct depending on the circumstances.

Manuscripts may be returned for correction where citation omissions are minor and unintentional. However, deliberate concealment of sources, systematic unattributed copying, fabricated citations, or substantial intellectual-property misuse may result in rejection.

Authors remain responsible for verifying that every significant idea, statement, dataset, figure, table, method, quotation, or finding derived from another source is appropriately acknowledged.

Peer Review and Editorial Assessment

Similarity screening is only one component of editorial assessment. Editors may also consider originality, methodological soundness, research significance, ethical compliance, data integrity, authorship, citation accuracy, copyright compliance, and responsible AI use.

The journal may request supporting information, original data, research documentation, ethical approval evidence, permissions, or explanations concerning similarity or publication-ethics concerns.

Rejection Policy

A manuscript may be rejected before or after peer review if the editorial team identifies serious concerns relating to:

• Plagiarism or substantial unattributed copying.
• Duplicate or simultaneous submission.
• Fabrication or falsification of research.
• Serious copyright infringement.
• Unverifiable or fabricated references.
• Misleading AI-generated content.
• Failure to disclose material AI use where disclosure is required.
• Serious ethical violations.
• Unethical authorship or authorship disputes that cannot be resolved.
• Failure to provide required ethical, methodological, or supporting documentation.

Serious misconduct may result in rejection irrespective of the numerical similarity percentage.

Editorial Discretion

The final decision regarding plagiarism, similarity, research misconduct, copyright concerns, AI-related issues, and publication ethics rests with the Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board, based on the evidence available and the circumstances of each individual case.

The journal reserves the right to request clarification, documentation, corrections, revisions, additional declarations, or supporting evidence before making an editorial decision.

Commitment to Academic Integrity

IJPCI is dedicated to promoting originality, transparency, responsible research, accurate attribution, ethical use of technology, and trustworthy scholarly communication. Authors, reviewers, editors, and readers share responsibility for maintaining the integrity of the academic record.

By submitting a manuscript to IJPCI, authors confirm that they have read and understood the journal's publication-ethics requirements and agree to take responsibility for the originality, accuracy, ethical integrity, appropriate attribution, and lawful use of materials contained in their submission.