Procedure for Ensuring Publication Originality and Authorship Integrity

“Systemy Logistyczne Wojsk” / “Military Logistics Systems” (SLW) applies a procedure designed to safeguard publication originality, authorship integrity and transparency of contributions made by persons and entities involved in manuscript preparation.

The procedure aims to prevent publication misconduct, in particular plagiarism, self-plagiarism, redundant or duplicate publication, simultaneous submission, ghostwriting, guest authorship, honorary authorship, paper mills and other practices that breach publication ethics.

The Editorial Office follows recognised publication ethics good practices, in particular the guidance of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

1. Manuscript Originality
Authors submitting a manuscript to SLW declare that the work is original, has not been published previously in whole or in substantial part, and is not under consideration by another journal, monograph, edited volume, conference proceedings or any other publication venue.

Authors must properly acknowledge all sources, data, tables, figures, photographs, maps, diagrams, text excerpts, ideas, methods, findings and third-party materials used in the manuscript.

The following practices are unacceptable:
• plagiarism, understood as the use of another person’s words, data, findings, concepts, graphics or other materials without appropriate attribution;
• self-plagiarism, understood as unauthorised reuse of the authors’ own previously published material without appropriate acknowledgement;
• redundant or duplicate publication, i.e. submitting or publishing substantially the same material in more than one venue without proper disclosure;
• simultaneous submission of the same manuscript to more than one publication venue;
• fabrication or falsification of data, findings, sources, citations or research documentation;
• submission of work prepared by a paper mill or another undisclosed entity in breach of research integrity standards.

2. Authorship and Author Contributions
Authorship should be limited to persons who have made a genuine and substantial intellectual contribution to the work and have approved its final version.

The corresponding author is responsible for communication with the Editorial Office and for obtaining the consent of all co-authors for submission, revisions and publication.

The Editorial Office requires disclosure of individual author contributions. The contribution statement may be descriptive or based on the CRediT taxonomy, including roles such as conceptualisation, methodology, formal analysis, investigation, data curation, writing – original draft, writing – review and editing, visualisation, supervision and funding acquisition.

Any change in the author list, author order or corresponding author details after submission requires a written explanation and the consent of all current and proposed authors. The Editorial Office may refuse an authorship change if it raises ethical concerns.

3. Ghostwriting, Guest Authorship and Honorary Authorship
Ghostwriting occurs when a person has made a substantial contribution to the publication but has not been disclosed as an author, co-author or contributor.

Guest authorship, gift authorship or honorary authorship occurs when a person is listed as an author or co-author despite having made no contribution or only a negligible contribution to the work.

Ghostwriting, guest authorship, gift authorship and honorary authorship are unacceptable and are treated as breaches of SLW publication ethics.

Persons who contributed to the work but do not meet authorship criteria should be acknowledged, with their consent and with a description of the nature of their contribution.

4. Funding, Institutional Support and Third-Party Assistance
Authors must disclose all sources of funding for the research, manuscript preparation, language editing, graphic preparation, analyses, data or other elements related to the publication.

Authors should also disclose the contribution of research institutions, public institutions, companies, organisations, associations, sponsors or other entities if they influenced the preparation of the work.

Editorial, language, technical, graphic or statistical assistance is permitted provided that it does not breach the principles of authorship, originality or author responsibility for the publication. Where appropriate, such assistance should be disclosed in the manuscript.

Rules on the use of generative artificial intelligence and other automated tools are described in the “Publication Ethics” section.

5. Similarity Checking and Originality Assessment
The Editorial Office may check submitted manuscripts using plagiarism detection software or other tools supporting the assessment of originality.

A similarity report is an auxiliary tool and does not constitute an automatic basis for an editorial decision. The Editorial Office assesses the nature, extent and context of similarities, including whether they result from properly cited sources, specialist terminology, legal acts, proper names, references, standard methods or unauthorised reuse of another person’s or the authors’ own previously published material.

In case of doubt, the Editorial Office may request explanations, citation corrections, sources, data, documentation, permissions, licences or other materials necessary to assess the originality of the work.

6. Procedure in Cases of Suspected Misconduct
If a breach of originality, authorship or publication integrity is suspected, the Editorial Office may:
• pause manuscript processing;
• request explanations from the authors;
• request documentation confirming author contributions, data sources, permissions, licences or funding;
• refer the matter for additional editorial or expert assessment;
• reject the manuscript on ethical grounds;
• after publication, publish a correction, editorial statement, expression of concern or retraction;
• in justified cases, notify relevant institutions, in particular the authors’ employing institutions, funding bodies, scholarly organisations or other entities relevant to the case.
The Editorial Office documents reports, explanations and decisions concerning breaches of originality and authorship integrity.

7. Related Policies
This procedure supplements SLW’s “Publication Ethics” policy. Rules on peer review, the use of generative artificial intelligence tools, conflicts of interest, research data, copyright, licensing, corrections and retractions, and personal data protection are described on separate journal policy pages.