The JPA’s policy on duplicate submissions (October 1, 2014)
This announcement describes the Japanese Psychological Association’s (JPA’s) policy on what
is considered to be a duplicate submission when a manuscript or presentation that is very similar
to a previously published paper is found in our academic journals, Shinrigaku Kenkyu andJapanese Psychological Research. Please read our position, definitions of the terms, and FAQs
concerning duplicate submissions below.

[The JPA’s position]
Submitting duplicate content is currently considered to be unethical conduct by many academic
institutions. The JPA agrees with this position against duplicate submissions. However, there arevarious levels of interpretation of what is considered to be a duplicate submission. This problemof duplicate submissions is arising coupled with other recent technical and societal changes
including the advancement of search technologies, publication via repository, padding ofacademic papers to increase achievement, and redundant publications1; cases that had neverbeen a problem before are now creating disputes. The JPA organized a subcommittee onsubmission criteria to discuss this matter, and considers a submission to be a duplicate based on
the definition below.

Duplicate submission: When the same author submits the same or a very similar academic
work2 several times on a continuous basis to one or more academic publications3 or generalpublications4, it is called a duplicate submission. There are several examples of duplicate
submissions, one of which is “when almost the same manuscript is submitted to multiple
publications at the same time.” Similarly, “dividing one piece of research on the same content or
research content that should be in one manuscript into multiple segments to submit on acontinuous basis (so-called “salami publishing”) is also considered to be a duplicate submission.
The above-mentioned “same author” refers to one or more same authors if the past academic
work2 is published by multiple authors.

[Definition of terms]
1. Redundant publication: Publishing a work made up of essentially redundant content of
2.

3.

4.
5.

an already published work. This includes printed and electronically published media.
Academic work: Individual work (papers, articles, reports) or a publication consisting ofa collection of such works that are published in academic-related documents5, academic
publications3, and general publications4 related to the published academic topic.
Academic publication: Academic journals or titles in general. There are two definitionsin this: one is that they are widely obtainable if one requests and the other is that they are
guaranteed to be academic in one way or another. The criterion for the former definition isthat their distribution is not limited, and they are available and browsable through a generalsearch. The criterion for the latter definition is the existence of a peer review system
supported by a body such as the Editorial Committee.
General publication: All the magazines and works that are distributed in general.
Academic-related document: A document that is necessary for the operation ofeducation and research. This specifically includes documents considered for a graduation

thesis, master’s thesis, or dissertation; documents other than academic papers including
working papers for internal circulation within an institution or smaller study group andtechnical reports; documents that are necessary for academic conference operation
including shorter presentation summaries within the character limit; or reports that areprepared to check if Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research and other grants are used andhandled properly.
However, there are also cases that are not clearly defined. Please consult the Editorial
Committee if you have any questions.

[FAQs]
1) Q: My presentation at an international conference was published in the conference archives.
Is this academic work2 as an academic-related document5 or academic work2 as an academic
publication3?
A: If the document in the archive is commonsensically considered to be essential forconference operation, including a presentation summary within the character limit, it would
be an academic-related document5. The summaries that appear in the JPA annual collectionof papers are academic-related documents. On the other hand, if the document is given
sufficient space and published with almost the same format and content as an academicpaper, it is considered to be an academic publication3. However, if the distribution is limited
and the document is hard to access or browse via general search, or if there is no peer
review system supported by a body such as the Editorial Committee before publication, itmight not meet the requirements for academic publication3. For works where the categories
are not clear and in the gray area, we strongly recommend consulting with the journal
publisher before submitting the work concerned.
2) Q: I submitted a manuscript that had the same content as the research plans and report that I
used for the application to Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research. Is this considered to be aduplicate submission?
A: It should not be considered a duplicate submission. Research plans and reports for grantapplications are considered to be academic-related documents5.
3) Q: My review paper published in Journal A was noticed by the editor in chief of Journal B
and that editor wanted to make it available to their readers. What kind of problems should I
be concerned about in term of a duplicate submission?
A: If a manuscript with almost the same content is published, it would entail copyrightissues. Therefore, the person who is responsible for editing Journal A (the copyright holder)needs to be consulted with and approve the usage. Consequently, while Journal B isrequesting a paper with the same content and it may seem that a duplicate submission is nolonger a problem, a paper published in Journal B should indicate in some way that it isidentical to or based on the one published in Journal A.