General Principles

The Ukrainian Scientific Medical Youth Journal (USMYJ) upholds the highest standards of academic integrity and ethical conduct in scholarly publishing.
Any form of plagiarism, duplication, fabrication, or falsification of data is considered unacceptable and constitutes a serious violation of research ethics.

Prohibited Practices

The following actions are defined as violations of academic integrity:

• Plagiarism — using another person’s text, ideas, data, figures, or tables without proper citation or permission.
• Self-plagiarism (duplicate publication) — reusing parts of one’s previously published work without clear reference or acknowledgment.
• Data fabrication — creating, inventing, or misrepresenting data or results that did not occur in the study.
• Data falsification — manipulating, altering, or selectively reporting results in a way that misleads readers or reviewers.

Anti-Plagiarism Policy

All submitted manuscripts undergo a plagiarism and text-similarity check using licensed software, such as StrikePlagiarism, to ensure the originality of content.
This software evaluates:

• the percentage of unique text;
• overlap with other published sources;
• the presence of improper citations or reused material.

Authors are required to submit original manuscripts presenting their own findings and written in their own words.
Any text, figure, table, or idea derived from other sources must be properly cited in the reference list.
When referring to published data or concepts, authors should paraphrase responsibly rather than copy text verbatim.

Actions in Case of Misconduct

• If plagiarism, data manipulation, or fabrication is detected prior to peer review, the manuscript will be rejected immediately.
• If ethical violations are identified during peer review or after publication, the editorial office will follow COPE Flowcharts to investigate and, if necessary, retract the article.
• Authors found guilty of misconduct may be barred from future submissions to the journal for a defined period.

Principles of Ethical Conduct

Authors are expected to:

• provide accurate and verifiable data;
• avoid simultaneous submission of the same manuscript to multiple journals;
• refrain from fragmenting one study into several overlapping publications (salami slicing).

Editors, reviewers, and members of the editorial board must act with impartiality, confidentiality, and integrity, ensuring that all review and decision processes remain objective and ethical.

Editorial Decisions

In confirmed cases of academic misconduct, the editorial board may:

• notify the authors and institutions involved;
• issue a retraction or correction notice explaining the reason for action;
• update the article’s online record in accordance with COPE Retraction Guidelines (2019).

All decisions regarding ethical violations are made transparently, based on evidence, and in full compliance with international publishing standards.