By submitting a manuscript to the Matan (متْن), it is understood that it is an original manuscript, unpublished work and is not submitted elsewhere. Plagiarism, including duplicate publication of the author’s own work, in whole or in part without proper citation is not tolerated by the journal. Plagiarism appears in various forms such as copying the same content from the other source; most commonly from the internet, copying elements of another author’s paper such as figures, tables or illustrations that can not be considered as common knowledge.

Self-plagiarism is also not allowed. Matan (متْن) defines self-plagiarism as the intentional or unintentional reuse of one’s own copyrighted work without citing the original source. However, this policy doesn’t apply to the manuscripts presented/appeared in any conference proceeding from the author's side and an explicit reference is made.

Plagiarism Check:

Firstly, Matan (متْن) checks plagiarism with the software recommended by HEC Pakistan. Secondly, it is checked manually by the team Matan (متْن). If plagiarism is detected by the editorial/advisory board member, reviewer etc., at any stage of article process- before or after acceptance, during editing or at a proofreading stage, we will inform the same to the author(s) and will ask them to reconsider the content or to cite the references from where the content has been taken. HEC Pakistan has already set the acceptable limit of similarity index produced by the TURNITIN i.e. 19%. If the similarity with different sources is more than 19% but less than 25%(With single-source not exceeding 5%), we prefer to send back the manuscript to the author and ask him to resubmit the paper after fixing that problem. But, if more than 25% of the paper is plagiarized, the article may be rejected and the same is notified to the author.

Plagiarism detected after publishing:

Sometimes, TURNITIN appears not very much efficient regarding the detection of plagiarism from the papers written in Urdu. In that case, if the plagiarism is detected manually and reported with proof after publishing, Matan (متْن) will conduct an investigation. In case if plagiarism is found, the paper may be formally retracted. The editor will write to the author’s institute and funding agencies about that and the paper containing the plagiarism will be marked "Plagiarism Detected after Publishing" on each page of the PDF Copy for a period of two months. Moreover, after two months, that paper will be removed from the website, and author(s) will be banned for the next six (6) issues of Matan (متْن).

Plagiarism Undertaking:

The authors must declare that their work is original at the time of submission. For this, an undertaking/acknowledgment form has been given in the Submission Menu (Downloads), stating that author(s) has not plagiarized any material and if found guilty he/they shall be solely responsible and Matan (متْن) reserve the right to take action against him/them. Author(s) are required to submit that form duly signed and stamped at the time of manuscript submission by E-mail and hard copy onto the Matan (متْن) address. It’s clearly stated that in Matan (متْن) Plagiarism Policy, if a paper has multiple authors, not only the principal author but also all the authors would be bound to take the responsibility of the plagiarism so they all would be required to submit the said undertaking/acknowledgment.