PLAGIARISM AND RETRACTION POLICY

Plagiarism Policy

All manuscripts submitted to MESA Journal will be screened for plagiarism and self-plagiarism using reliable plagiarism detection tools such as Turnitin or equivalent software. Manuscripts exceeding a similarity threshold of 20% will be automatically returned to the author for revision or rejection depending on severity.

Forms of unacceptable similarity include:

  • Copy-pasting from other sources without proper citation.
  • Republishing the same content across multiple publications (self-plagiarism).
  • Translating another work without citation.

Authors are expected to ensure that their submissions are entirely original, and that appropriate citations are provided when referring to others' work. All detected cases of unethical academic behavior will be handled according to COPE guidelines.

Article Withdrawal

Article withdrawal applies to Articles in Press — i.e., articles that have been accepted but not yet published in a regular issue (do not yet have volume, issue, or page number).

Withdrawal may occur in the following cases:

  • Duplicate submission (submitted to multiple journals).
  • Serious errors identified by authors or editors (methodological flaws, incorrect data).
  • Violations of ethical standards such as plagiarism, data fabrication, or authorship fraud.

Withdrawn articles will be removed from the system and replaced with a notice explaining the reason for withdrawal. The HTML and PDF content will be replaced with a statement indicating that the article has been withdrawn, including a reference to the journal's withdrawal policy.

Article Retraction

An article may be retracted if it is found to contain:

  • Proven cases of plagiarism
  • Data manipulation or falsification
  • Duplicate publication
  • Unethical research practices
  • Legal or ethical violations discovered after publication

The retraction will be initiated by the editor, author(s), or institution. Retraction procedures include:

  • A retraction note titled “Retraction: [Article Title]” signed by the Editor-in-Chief and/or authors will be published in the following issue.
  • A link will be maintained between the retraction note and the original article.
  • The PDF of the retracted article will remain online with a watermark label: “RETRACTED”.
  • The HTML version may be removed to avoid confusion, but metadata (title, authors) will be retained.

MESA Journal follows retraction protocols in line with COPE Retraction Guidelines and best practices by major indexing bodies.

Article Removal (Legal Limitations)

In rare and exceptional circumstances, an article may be removed entirely from the website when:

  • The article is found to be defamatory or violates personal privacy or intellectual property rights.
  • The article is subject to a court order.
  • The article, if acted upon, poses a serious health or safety risk.

In such cases, the article will be replaced with a removal notice indicating legal reasons. The metadata (such as title and author names) will still be preserved for the sake of the academic record.