To uphold academic integrity and protect the interest of readers and authors, the journal implements rigorous testing procedure to all submitted manuscripts:

(1) Identification of academic misconduct

All submitted manuscripts shall be subjected to testing using CNKI 'Science and Technology Periodical Academic Misconduct Document Detection System', coupled with clues of misconduct provided by reviewers. The manuscript shall be examined to see if it contains plagiarism, fraud, falsification, improper signature, etc. Suspected manuscripts will be thoroughly examined by expertise invited by the editorial office or members of the editorial board. 

(2) Scope of testing

a) All submitted manuscripts.

b) Manuscripts suspected of academic misconduct.

(3) Criteria for identifying academic misconduct

Manuscripts with 15% or higher plagiarism likelihood (according to the plagiarism detection report) shall be sent to the reviewers or the editorial board to confirm the nature and form of the manuscript in alignment with the manuscript of similitude.

The manuscript that contains any of the following unethical behavior shall be identified as academic misconduct:

a) Direct copying, paraphrasing or rewriting of others’ ideas, data, texts, research method or results without clear citations.

b) Inclusion of any form of published work without clear citations or acknowledgements, or the follow-up research is proved insufficient. 

c) Fabrication or tampering with data, research results or literature.

d) Duplicate submission

e) Conflicts of interest and incorrect signature, authorship or institutional affiliations. 

(4) Sanctions for Academic Misconduct

a) Authors shall be informed by the editorial office on a suspected duplicate submission and respond to relevant evidence. The evidence should be checked in a prudent manner by the editorial office before any sanction is made.

b) If the suspected manuscript has not been accepted, the editorial office shall terminate the assessment procedure and inform the author of the manuscript's rejection.

c) If the suspected manuscript has been accepted but not formally published, the editorial office shall withdraw the manuscript instantly, inform the author of its rejection, return all the submitting materials and give the author a warning.

d) If the suspected manuscript has already been published, the editorial office shall post a retraction statement online, in the latest issue and to the related database administration to withdraw all the data and information related to the retracted manuscript. The author's institution will be informed about the misconduct and the author should pay for the fees generated in the assessment procedure, give statement of apology to the journal and its readership, the authors or institutions being plagiarized for the adverse effects caused by the misconduct and assume corresponding responsibilities. The editorial office reserves the rights to demand further compensation for compromised reputation or other losses on the journal's side.

e) The authors of the manuscript that involve academic misconduct shall be rejected for the next three years as authors of other manuscripts.

The above measures shall be implemented since the date of promulgation and the editorial office of South China Fisheries Science reserves the right of final explanation.