Originality and attribution

Submissions must give accurate credit to the sources of ideas, text, data, methods and images. Copying or closely paraphrasing another work without attribution is unacceptable. Quoted wording must be identified appropriately, and permission is required when the use exceeds the relevant license or other lawful allowance. Translation of published material does not make it an original contribution.

Overlap with earlier work

Authors must disclose related articles, manuscripts, conference reports and preprints, especially when they use the same participants or datasets. Explain what is new and provide the related materials when requested. Do not present a previously published analysis or result as new, or divide a study into overlapping reports without a defensible scientific reason and transparent cross-reference.

Limited reuse of a necessary methods description is assessed in context and requires citation of the earlier work; it does not justify extensive undisclosed text recycling. Secondary analyses can be considered when they address a distinct question, identify the source data and clearly explain their relationship to previous reports. Preprints are governed by Preprints.

Concurrent and duplicate submission

A manuscript must not be submitted simultaneously to HNCBT and another journal. Withdrawal should be completed and acknowledged before submitting the same manuscript elsewhere. Authors must inform the editor if a related report is accepted or published during assessment.

Assessment and action

Editors may use similarity assessment, source comparison and author explanations to evaluate possible overlap. A similarity percentage alone does not establish plagiarism; the nature, location and attribution of the matched material matter. The journal may request clarification or related source documents and may contact another editor or the responsible institution when appropriate.

Substantial unresolved overlap may lead to rejection. Concerns identified after publication are assessed under Publication Ethics and may require a correction or retraction. Authors should report an unintended overlap promptly rather than attempt to conceal it.