Plagiarism and AI Usage Policy

Plagiarism Policy

Definition and Forms of Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the use of others published or unpublished ideas, data, or language, in whole or in part, without adequate attribution. Sovereign Journal of Transnational and Transborder Studies recognizes the following forms of plagiarism, among others:

• Direct (verbatim) plagiarism — copying text word-for-word from another source without quotation marks and citation.

• Paraphrasing plagiarism — rewording another author's text closely enough that the original phrasing or structure is merely disguised, without proper citation.

• Mosaic (patchwork) plagiarism — piecing together phrases and sentences from one or more sources, with or without minor alterations, without adequate citation.

• Self-plagiarism (text recycling) — reusing substantial portions of one's own previously published work without disclosure or citation (see Section 5.3).

• Idea plagiarism — presenting another person's concept, theoretical framework, or argument as one's own original contribution.

• Data and image plagiarism — using another author's data, figures, tables, or images without permission or attribution.

Similarity Index Thresholds

All manuscripts submitted to Sovereign Journal of Transnational and Transborder Studies are screened using a recognized plagiarism-detection application (e.g., Turnitin or iThenticate). The overall similarity index, excluding the bibliography, quotations properly marked and cited, and common methodological phrasing, is used as an indicative — not automatically dispositive — measure, applied as follows:

Self-Plagiarism and Duplicate Submission

Authors may build on their own prior work, including conference papers, working papers, theses, and preprints, but must disclose this relationship at submission and cite the earlier work appropriately. Submitting substantially the same manuscript to more than one journal simultaneously, or republishing previously published material as if it were new without clear disclosure and cross-referencing, is treated as a serious ethical violation. Authors wishing to publish a manuscript derived substantially from their thesis or dissertation must disclose this at submission.

Screening Procedure

• Upon submission, every manuscript is automatically screened for textual similarity prior to being assigned to an editor.

• The similarity report is reviewed by the handling editor alongside the manuscript; flagged passages are examined in context rather than judged on the raw percentage alone.

• Where concerns remain after editorial review, the manuscript is returned to the corresponding author with a request for revision, clarification, or withdrawal, as appropriate.

• A second similarity check is performed prior to final acceptance and again prior to publication, to capture any changes introduced during revision.

 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) and large language model (LLM) tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and similar applications) are increasingly used in scholarly writing. Sovereign Journal of Transnational and Transborder Studies permits the responsible, transparent use of such tools subject to the requirements below, consistent with WAME's Recommendations on Chatbots and Generative AI and COPE's position statement on authorship and AI tools.

Permitted and Prohibited Uses of AI Tools

Permitted, subject to disclosure: language editing and proofreading; improving readability and grammar; summarizing background literature already identified and verified by the author(s); formatting assistance; and code-writing assistance for data analysis, provided the underlying analysis is verified by the author(s).

Prohibited under any circumstance: generating fabricated data, citations, or results; producing substantive manuscript text (e.g., the Introduction, Discussion, or theoretical argument) that is submitted without substantial independent verification, revision, and intellectual ownership by the named author(s); and using AI tools to generate peer-review reports without editorial authorization and disclosure.

Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, integrity, and originality of their manuscript, including any content produced with the assistance of an AI tool. AI-generated citations and factual claims must be independently verified against primary sources before submission; “AI hallucination” (fabricated or inaccurate citations, quotations, or data) is treated as a form of research misconduct if it appears in a submitted or published manuscript.

Disclosure Requirements

Authors must disclose the use of any generative AI tool in the preparation of the manuscript. Disclosure must be made in the Methods section (where AI assisted with analysis) and/or in the Acknowledgements section (where AI assisted with writing or editing), specifying:

• The name and version of the tool used;

• The purpose for which it was used (e.g., language editing, literature summarization, code generation); and

• The extent of its contribution and the steps taken by the author(s) to verify the resulting content.

AI Cannot Be Listed as an Author

AI tools cannot be listed as an author or co-author of a manuscript submitted to Sovereign Journal of Transnational and Transborder Studies. Authorship carries accountability for the work, and AI tools cannot take such responsibility, cannot give consent to be listed as an author, and cannot approve the final version of a manuscript for submission, as required by the journal's authorship criteria (Section 2.3).

AI-Generated Content Screening

• In addition to similarity screening (Section 5.4), submitted manuscripts may be screened using AI-content detection tools to identify passages that may have been generated by a language model.

• An elevated AI-detection score is treated as an indicative flag, not conclusive proof of misconduct; the handling editor will consider it alongside the author's disclosure statement (Section 6.2) and may request clarification or the underlying research materials (e.g., interview transcripts, field notes, data files) from the author(s).

• Manuscripts in which substantial, undisclosed AI-generated text is identified will be returned to the author(s) for disclosure and revision; repeated or material non-disclosure will be treated as a breach of this policy under Section 6.5.

Sanctions for Undisclosed or Improper AI Use

Failure to disclose the use of generative AI tools, or use of such tools in a manner prohibited under Section 6.1, will be treated as a breach of publication ethics under Section 4 and may result in manuscript rejection, retraction of a published article, and/or other sanctions listed in Section 4.3, proportionate to the severity and nature of the breach.