Plagiarism Policy

HC : Human Care Journal editorial board recognizes that plagiarism is not acceptable and therefore establishes the following policy stating specific actions (penalties) when plagiarism is identified in an article submitted for publication in HC.

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.”

Policy:

Papers must be original, unpublished, and not pending publication elsewhere. Any material taken verbatim from another source needs to be clearly identified by indentation, quotation marks, and citation.

When plagiarism is identified, the Editor-in-Chief responsible for the review of this paper will agree on measures according to the extent of plagiarism detected, following the guidelines below:

Level of Plagiarism

1. Minor: Short section plagiarized without major data.
   Action: Warning and correction request.
2. Intermediate: Significant section plagiarized without citation.
   Action: Article rejected, author banned for one year.
3. Severe: Original results or ideas copied.
   Action: Rejected and author banned for five years.

All authors are responsible for the submitted content as they sign the HC Copyright Transfer Form. Repeated plagiarism will result in a permanent ban.

Authors must acknowledge all reused figures, methods, or prior work. If overlap is found with previous submissions, it will be treated as a plagiarism case according to its severity (minor, intermediate, severe).

In case of translated or republished works, original sources must be cited, and copyright permission obtained. The editor may accept translations to broaden access to previous works with clear credit to the original publication.

The layout editor maintains a list of penalized authors to prevent future submissions. This policy is displayed on the HC website and sent with submission confirmations.