Plagiarism Policy

The Afro-Asian Journal of Law and Governance (AJLG) adopts a very stringent policy of non-tolerance for plagiarism and any form of academic or research misconduct. All manuscripts submitted to the Journal should only be original scholarly work written by the submitting author(s). It is the responsibility of the authors to ensure that all ideas, words, data, arguments and materials drawn from elsewhere are correctly cited. Plagiarism involves presenting someone else's words, ideas, data, arguments and intellectual contribution as one's own without proper citation.

Plagiarism Policy

Any manuscript submitted to the Afro-Asian Journal of Law and Governance can undergo plagiarism detection through recognized software such as Turnitin before the process of peer review and, if necessary, before publication. Plagiarism detection helps the journal in identifying similarities but does not take away the discretion of the editor and reviewers on academic issues. The final decision on whether the similarity constitutes plagiarism will depend on the nature, extent, position and context of the detected material.

Acceptable Similarity Threshold

The Journal follows the following general guidelines regarding similarities:

  1. Where a manuscript’s overall similarity score is less than 20%, it may move forward to the review process by the journal, but this can only be done if none of the sources has more than 3% similarity without any form of citation.
  2. Manuscripts that have a similarity score of 20% and above but not more than 35% may be returned to the author(s) for more details, revisions, proper citation, or correction.
  3. Where the manuscript has similarities exceeding 35%, or the content has copied, unattributed, and improperly paraphrased materials, the manuscript can be automatically rejected.

These are just guidelines and are not meant to determine whether there is plagiarism or not. Hence, A manuscript with a lower similarity index may still constitute plagiarism where the identified material involves substantial unattributed copying or other forms of academic misconduct.

Serious Forms of Plagiarism and Academic Misconduct

These are ethical violations:

  1. Plagiarism that involves direct copying of words, ideas, arguments, or materials without appropriate citation;
  2. Patchwork or mosaic plagiarism that involves a mixture of materials from different sources without appropriate citation;
  3. Translation plagiarism that involves translation of a work done by someone else without appropriate citation;
  4. Data plagiarism that involves use of data generated by other researchers without appropriate citation;
  5. Self-plagiarism and duplicate publication that involves reuse of one's own earlier work without appropriate citation;
  6. Citation manipulation or deliberate manipulation of citations in order to misrepresent the source of the scholarship; and
  7. False citation that involves use of false or invented citations or citation of AI-generated fabricated references or AI-generated content.

Where plagiarism or other forms of academic misconduct are discovered after publication, the Journal may issue a correction, expression of concern, retraction, or removal notice, depending on the seriousness and nature of the violation.