Similarity or Plagiarism Detection Policies

Similarity and Plagiarism Detection Policy

Plagiarism is defined as any unauthorized appropriation, use, or substantial copying of another person’s work presented as one’s own. Self-plagiarism is also considered a violation and refers to the reuse of previously published work by the same author without proper citation, presenting it as new and original research.

MENTOR Journal of Educational and Sports Research has contracted the professional service PlagiarismSearch.com for similarity detection in all submitted manuscripts. This software is used prior to the peer-review process to ensure rigorous verification of content originality.

If substantial similarity with other texts is detected, the Editorial Board will assess the extent of duplication in accordance with the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and will take the appropriate editorial action:

1. If clear plagiarism is identified, the authors will be contacted and provided with documentary evidence, along with reference to their previously signed originality statement. The article will be immediately rejected.

2. If only isolated phrases are identified, without appropriation of substantive ideas, the authors will be asked to revise the citations and properly reference the original sources. The revised version will be re-verified using the contracted software.

3. If plagiarism practices persist or the requested corrections are not implemented, the article will be rejected with a formal communication explaining the editorial decision.

During the peer-review process, referees or members of the Scientific Committee may also use open-access plagiarism detection tools. If potential plagiarism is detected, they are expected to report it through the official evaluation form.

If the Editorial Board receives documented plagiarism observations from reviewers, it will proceed according to the procedures described above.

Additionally, the Editorial Board limits the number of self-citations or self-references to a maximum of five (5) per manuscript. If this limit is exceeded, authors will be notified and required to revise the manuscript accordingly, with a maximum of 20 working days to submit a new version.