Plagiarism Policy

ISSN: 0974-536X  ·  Turnitin Screened  ·  Follows COPE Guidelines

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Creative Saplings (CS) is committed to upholding the most rigorous standards of academic integrity and originality across all its publications. The journal regards plagiarism, in any form, as a serious breach of scholarly ethics and enforces a strict anti-plagiarism policy at every stage of the editorial process.

Additionally, Creative Saplings does not admit manuscripts that are fully or substantially generated by artificial intelligence. Stringent measures are implemented during the manuscript selection process, and the journal reserves the right to withhold or retract publication if any discrepancies are identified at any stage. All authors are expected to adhere in full to the guidelines set out below.

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Principle 1

Content Originality

All articles submitted to Creative Saplings (CS) must be entirely original and must not have been previously published in any form — in any language, in any journal, conference proceeding, edited volume, website, blog, or other platform, in whole or in substantial part.

Where previously published or contributed content is drawn upon, it must be properly cited and referenced in the submitted article in accordance with MLA citation requirements. Self-plagiarism — the republication of the author's own previously published work without proper attribution — is not permitted and will be treated in the same manner as other forms of plagiarism.

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Principle 2

Appropriate Citation

All sources used in a submitted article — including primary and secondary sources, published and unpublished works, and online materials — must be correctly cited in the body of the text and listed in the Works Cited at the end of the manuscript.

Creative Saplings follows the Modern Language Association (MLA) citation style, current (9th) edition, for all in-text citations and Works Cited entries. Authors must ensure that:

• —Every source cited in the text appears in the Works Cited list, and vice versa.
• —Direct quotations are placed within quotation marks and followed by an in-text citation with page number.
• —Paraphrased material is attributed to its source even when no direct quotation is used.

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Principle 3

Plagiarism Screening

All articles submitted to Creative Saplings (CS) are checked using Turnitin plagiarism detection software before entering the peer review process. Turnitin compares the submitted manuscript against an extensive and continuously updated database of academic and non-academic sources — including published journals, books, conference papers, websites, and student repositories — to identify textual similarities.

Authors are required to submit a Turnitin similarity report alongside their manuscript at the time of submission. Manuscripts submitted without an attached similarity report will be returned to the author without editorial review.

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Principle 4

Acceptable Similarity Thresholds

The following three-band system governs the editorial response to Turnitin similarity scores:

Similarity Index	Status	Editorial Action
10% or below	Acceptable	Manuscript proceeds to double-blind peer review.
10% to 15%	Under Review	Reviewed by the editorial team to determine whether similarities arise from legitimate reasons — such as common knowledge, standard disciplinary terminology, or unintentional error. The author may be asked to revise and resubmit with a clean Turnitin report before peer review proceeds.
Above 15%	Rejected	Manuscript is rejected. The corresponding author is formally notified. The manuscript will not be reconsidered unless it has been substantially revised and a new submission is made.

Note: These thresholds apply to the body text of the article only. Title page, abstract, keywords, direct quotations, and Works Cited are excluded from the similarity calculation.

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Principle 5

Consequences of Plagiarism

Creative Saplings takes plagiarism with the utmost seriousness. The following consequences apply in cases where plagiarism is identified, whether before or after publication:

When identified	Consequence
Before publication	The manuscript is immediately rejected and the author is formally notified. The editorial office records the case for future reference.
After publication	The article is retracted from the journal with a public retraction notice. The author is permanently barred from submitting future work to Creative Saplings.
Institutional notification	The journal reserves the right to notify the author's institution, department head, or supervisor of the misconduct, along with supporting documentation.
Legal action	Where necessary and appropriate, the journal reserves the right to take legal action in cases of serious copyright infringement or academic fraud.

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Publishing Ethics  ·  Terms & Conditions  ·  Peer Review Policy  ·  Complaint Handling Committee  ·  COPE Retraction Guidelines

Creative Saplings  ·  e-ISSN: 0974-536X  ·  editor@creativesaplings.in  ·  https://creativesaplings.in/index.php/1/