Confmeets Publishing defines plagiarism as the appropriation of
another's intellectual property without due credit and maintains an
unequivocal zero-tolerance stance.
A Typology of Plagiaristic Acts
- Verbatim Theft: The direct, unacknowledged copying of text, from phrases
to entire sections, without the use of quotation marks and a precise
citation.
- Disguised Paraphrasing: The act of reworking another's ideas or
prose while retaining the essential syntactic and semantic structure,
even with a citation. True scholarship demands novel synthesis and
original expression, not superficial rewording.
- Self-Plagiarism (Text-Recycling): The unattributed reuse of one's
own previously published text or data. This misrepresents the novelty
of the work, can constitute copyright infringement, and artificially
inflates an author's publication record.
- Conceptual Appropriation: The unattributed use of another
scholar's novel hypothesis, theory, research structure, or unique
methodological approach, which represents a theft of intellectual
concept rather than just text.
- Data and Figure Misappropriation: Reproducing tables, figures,
graphs, or datasets from another source, including one's own prior
publications, without obtaining explicit permission and providing
clear, prominent attribution.
Graded Sanctions and Consequences
All submissions are screened using advanced text-similarity software
(e.g., iThenticate). The editorial response is tiered based on the
severity of the infraction:
- Minor Infraction: Results in a request for revision and citation
correction, with an educational directive on proper attribution
practices.
- Substantial Plagiarism: Leads to immediate rejection of the
manuscript, a formal letter of warning to all authors, and a temporary
submission ban for 36 months.
- Severe Misconduct: Triggers the most severe sanctions: immediate
retraction of any published article, a permanent ban for all
implicated authors, and formal notification of the misconduct to the
authors' institutional heads, funding bodies, and relevant academic
societies.
