Plagiarism refers to the unacknowledged use of someone else’s work and typically results from improper referencing. It violates moral and professional ethics.

An essential component of academic work is proper referencing, which acknowledges the sources consulted and provides enough information for readers to identify them.

Violations of publication ethics include plagiarism, duplicate publication, concurrent submission, data fabrication and falsification, and improper attribution of authorship.

To prevent such violations, submissions to the Basrah Journal of Surgery are screened with plagiarism-detection software (iThenticate). Unethical behavior is not tolerated by the journal. Note that similarity below 20% may still warrant attention, but Basrah Journal of Surgery may overlook similarity above this threshold in certain contexts.

New submissions to the Basrah Journal of Surgery are also screened using Crossref’s CrossCheck within the editorial system. A responsible editorial board member may generate a similarity report at any point during the review process or after publication to verify originality.

Authors are expected to submit original work and to cite all sources properly. Plagiarism, including self-plagiarism, is generally unacceptable and can lead to manuscript rejection or article retraction. Authors are typically required to attest that their work is original, properly cited, and not previously published elsewhere. It is important to familiarize oneself with the Basrah Journal of Surgery’s specific plagiarism policy, which can be found on the journal’s website or in the author guidelines.