Sumatera Medical Journal uses Turnitin software to detect similarities in text in article manuscripts; a maximum of 25% similarity is allowed. If we find more than 25% of the similarity rate, the article will be returned to the author for correction and resubmission.

The editor-in-chief reviews the article and follows the guidelines based on the level of plagiarism detected in the article.

Small plagiarism rate: Short sections of other articles are plagiarized without significant data or ideas taken from different articles
Action: A warning is given to the author and a request to change the text and cite the original article correctly

Medium plagiarism rate: Most articles are plagiarized without proper citations for the original article
Action: Submitted articles are rejected, and authors are prohibited from submitting further articles for one year

Severe plagiarism rate: Most articles are plagiarized, which involves reproducing the original result or idea presented in another publication
Action: The article is rejected, and the author is prohibited from submitting any further articles for five years.