Plagiarism is a fraudulent behavior that infringes on the rules of journal and intellectual property rights. It involves both stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward and it is the most common problem in the academic world in today’s scenario. Plagiarism is the unethical act of copying someone else's prior ideas, processes, results or words without explicit acknowledgement of the original author and source. The widespread use of computers and the advent of the internet have made it easier to plagiarize the work of others. REE&PQJ is a peer-reviewed journal aimed at providing a platform for researchers to showcase and disseminate high-quality research in the domain of renewable energies, environment and power quality. REE&PQJ promises to be a high-quality dissemination forum for new ideas, technology focus, research results and discussions on the evolution of renewable energies, environment and power quality. The joumal is strictly  against any unethical act of copying  or plagiarism in any form.

Plagiarism is said to have occurred when large portions of a manuscript have been copied from existing previously published resources. Then manuscripts submitted for publication to REE&PQJ are cross-checked for plagiarism using iThenticate/Turnitin software. Manuscripts found to be  plagiarized  during  initial stages of review are out-rightly rejected and not  considered for publication in the journal. In case a manuscript is found to be plagiarized after publication, the Editor-in-Chief will conduct preliminary investigation, may be with the help of a suitable committee constituted for the purpose. If the manuscript is found to be plagiarized beyond the acceptable limits, the journal  will  contact the author's lnstitute/College/University and Funding Agency, if any. A determination of misconduct will lead REE&PQJ to run a statement bi-directionally linked online to and from the original paper, to note the plagiarism and provide a reference to the plagiarized material. The paper containing the plagiarism will also be marked on each page of the PDF. Upon determination of the extent of plagiarism, the paper may also be formally retracted.

Types of Plagiarism

The following types of plagiarism are considered by REE&PQJ:

1. Full Plagiarism: Previously published content without any changes to the text, idea and grammar is considered as full plagiarism. It involves presenting exact text from a source as one's own.
2. Partial Plagiarism: If content is a mixture from multiple different sources, where the author has extensively rephrased text, then it is known as partial plagiarism.
3. Self-Plagiarism: Occurs when an author utilizes large part of his/her own previously published work without using appropriate references. This can range from getting the same manuscript published in multiple joumals to modifying a previously published manuscript with some new data.

Policy and Action for Plagiarism

REE&PQJ respects intellectual property and aims at protecting and promoting original work of its authors. Manuscripts containing plagiarized material are against the standards of quality, research and innovation. Hence, all authors submitting articles to REE&PQJ are expected to abide ethical standards and abstain from plagiarism, in any form. In case, an author is found to be suspected of plagiarism in a submitted or published manuscript then, REE&PQJ shall contact the author(s) to submit his/her (their) explanation within two weeks, which may be forwarded to the Journal Integrity Committee (JIC) constituted for the purpose, for further course of action. If REE&PQJ does not receive any response from the author within the stipulated time period, then the Director/ Dean/Head of the concemed College, lnstitution or Organization or the Vice Chancellor of the University to which the  author is affiliated shall be contacted to take strict action against the concemed author.

REE&PQJ shall take serious action against published manuscripts found to contain plagiarism and shall completely remove them from REE&PQJ website and other third party websites where the paper is listed and indexed. The moment, any article published in REE&PQJ database is reported to be plagiarized, REE&PQJ have a Journal Integrity Committee (JIC) that comprise principles of ethics and good practice applicable to journal. Upon having established that the manuscript is plagiarized from some previously published work, REE&PQJ shall support the original author and manuscript irrespective of the publisher and may take any or all of the following immediate actions or follow the additional course of actions as recommended by JIC:

1. REE&PQJ editorial office shall immediately contact the Director/Dean/Head  of the concerned College, Institution or Organization or the Vice Chancellor of the University to which the author(s) is (are) affiliated to take strict action against the concerned author.
2. REE&PQJ shall remove the PDF copy of the published manuscript from the website and disable all links to full text article. The term Plagiarized Manuscript shall be appended to the published manuscript title.
3. REE&PQJ shall disable the author account with the journal and reject all future submissions from the author for a period of 03/05/1O years or even ban the authors pennanently.
4. REE&PQJ may also display the list of such authors along with their full contact details on the REE&PQJ website.
5. Any other course of action, as recommended by the Committee or as deemed fit for the instant case or as decided by the Editorial Board, from time to time.

Plagiarism Detection Process, is the process of locating instances of plagiarism or copyright infringement within a work or document. Four main stages are required:

1. Collecting the content: It is the first stage, where the plagiarism detector collects the required content from the users through a search engine which acts as the interface between the users and the detector.

2. Analyzing the similarities: After collecting the content (scientific papers, assignments, and other softcopies), the detector runs an analyzing method to search for the similarities among the documents and reveal the original copy.

3. Confirming the copy: After the analyzing stage, a function for plagiarism conformation is required to reveal the plagiarized text from an original one. Sometimes, a degree of the plagiarized text is confirmed with this process.

4. Investigation: It is the final stage, which depends highly on the interference made by the user whenever a plagiarism is confirmed. It also relies on the expert of the user to distinguish between the really plagiarized documents and the cited ones.

Software used. As help for to verify the originality of content submitted to journal, we use iThenticate/Turnitin to check submissions against previous publications. Turnitin is an internet-based plagiarism detection service, emerged as a digital platform in 1995. When evaluating an article, Turnitin provides both formative and summative assessments.