Plagiarism Policy

Interdisciplinary Life Sciences (ILS) is committed to upholding the highest standards of academic integrity and ethical publishing. The Editorial Board recognizes that plagiarism is a serious breach of scholarly conduct and has therefore established this policy to define clear actions and penalties when plagiarism is identified in a submitted manuscript.

Definition

“Plagiarism involves the use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work.”

General Policy

  • Originality: All submitted manuscripts must be original, unpublished, and not pending publication elsewhere.
  • Verbatim Text: Any material taken verbatim from another source must be clearly distinguished from the author's original text by:
    (1) Indentation, (2) Use of quotation marks, and (3) Clear identification of the source.
  • Fair Use & Permissions: Any text exceeding fair use standards (defined as more than two or three sentences, or the equivalent thereof) or any graphic material reproduced from another source requires:
    • Permission from the copyright holder (and, if feasible, the original author),
    • Full identification of the source (e.g., previous publication).

Penalties for Plagiarism

When plagiarism is identified, the Editor-in-Chief, in consultation with the handling Editor, will apply measures according to the extent of the violation, following these guidelines:

🟢 Minor
A short section of another article is plagiarized without any significant data or ideas taken from the other paper.
Action (Penalty) A warning is issued to the authors, along with a request to revise the text and properly cite the original source.
🟡 Intermediate
A significant portion of a paper is plagiarized without proper citation to the original source.
Action (Penalty) The submitted article is rejected, and the authors are forbidden from submitting further articles to ILS for one year.
🔴 Severe
A significant portion of a paper is plagiarized, involving the reproduction of original results or ideas presented in another publication.
Action (Penalty) The paper is rejected, and the authors are forbidden from submitting further articles to ILS for five years.
⚖️ Shared Responsibility

It is understood that all authors are collectively responsible for the content of their submitted paper. If a penalty is imposed for plagiarism, all listed authors will be subject to the same penalty.