Table of contents is an important part of the paper, which shows the structure and content arrangement of the paper and helps readers locate the needed information quickly. However, because the paper duplicate checking system usually ignores the text content in the catalog and only pays attention to the text part, some people think that it is unnecessary to modify the format of the catalog before duplicate checking, which may waste time and energy.

On the other hand, some people think that modifying the directory format can improve the accuracy of the duplicate checking system. Because in some cases, the plagiarist may try to avoid double-checking the detection of the system by inserting extra blank lines, keywords or other text in the directory. Therefore, by modifying the directory format, these interference items can be removed, so that the system can detect the repetition and similarity of texts more accurately.

In view of the fact that no consensus has been reached at present, whether to modify the directory format still needs to be decided according to the specific situation. If the duplicate checking system is insensitive to the contents of the directory, or the directory in the paper has not been tampered with, it may not be necessary to modify the directory format. However, if the duplicate checking system is sensitive to the contents of the directory, and there is a situation that the plagiarist may hide in the directory, it may be necessary to modify the directory format.

To sum up, whether it is necessary to modify the table of contents format when the paper is repeated is still a problem to be discussed and further studied. When checking the duplicate of a paper, it is necessary to make a decision by considering the specific situation of the paper and the characteristics of the duplicate checking system, and to ensure the academic integrity and improve the accuracy of the duplicate checking system.