Correspondence Address:
Dr. Shishir Singh
Department of Conservative Dentistry and Endodontics, Terna Dental College, Nerul, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra
India

Full Text

Dear Readers,

Hope you all are enjoying reading the scientific research being published in the Journal of Conservative Dentistry. The editorial team is trying their best to cover all the areas in our specialty and bring a wide array of papers to you. Yes, the work being done by our students and their teachers is commendable and I am happy to see that a large number gets converted into research papers for publishing which is in itself noteworthy.

Converting one’s research into a scientific paper is one of the biggest challenges we all face, be it the language checks or adhering to the strict journal guidelines and finally summing one’s scientific research into a prescribed word count. This calls for the best writing skills using the relevant words and correct flow in language to bring out the salient features highlighting every single step and methodology performed. The discussion itself calls for creativity and originality from the author.

Unfortunately, it is distressing to see a lack of authenticity and innovation in the writing skills. Using the function of copy-paste from other original papers to one’s own is commonplace causing a whole lot of issues among the peers and fraternity leading to academic shaming and other correlated issues. Plagiarism is one of the most sensitive issues that have plagued the research community for a long time, and we must all try our best to stay away from it. We have a whole lot of processes and techniques devised to identify, prevent, and correct such plagiarism from happening and, in turn, improve the credibility of the research being published. There are a whole lot of software’s available in the market to detect plagiarism and help overcome it. It definitely would be a good idea to run the paper through an antiplagiarism software that not only quantifies the plagiarism present but also highlights it so as to enable the author to take corrective measures. This can be done by appropriate guidance from the senior teachers and making proper notes. Another very effective method is by paraphrasing such sentences in your own words with a citation. Do make it a point to reconfirm your sources and only include only those which you are absolutely sure of. It is equally important that the author gives due credit to someone else’s research by citing the source thus making the paper stronger.

Total restraint from plagiarism makes one’s research purer and more reliable improving the validity and trustworthiness of the researcher in the scientific community.

It is my wholehearted request that the senior academicians and teachers must inculcate the values of credibility and trustworthiness among the junior students and researchers. We all have to work toward creating a breed of scientists whose genuineness and dependability can provide credibility to the research work. I believe preventing plagiarism from occurring is the best method to a successful publication and we all must strive towards the same. In the meantime, please do take care of yourselves in these difficult times of the pandemic and stay safe.