Policy of Screening for Plagiarism

Manuscripts submitted to the International Journal of Research on English Teaching and Applied Linguistics are screened for similarity using Turnitin. Screening is carried out by a member of the editorial team before a manuscript is sent to reviewers, and is repeated on the revised manuscript before acceptance.

Thresholds. The similarity index must be below 20 per cent, calculated with the reference list and directly quoted material excluded, and no single source may account for more than 5 per cent of the text. A high index is not by itself proof of misconduct, and a low index is not by itself proof of integrity. The editors read the similarity report rather than the headline percentage, because one unattributed passage of a few hundred words matters more than a scatter of common phrases spread across many sources.

Outcome. A manuscript that exceeds either threshold is returned to the author with the report attached, and may be resubmitted once the passages concerned have been correctly quoted, attributed, or rewritten. Where the report shows deliberate appropriation of another person's work, the manuscript is rejected and is not reconsidered. Where a concern arises after publication, the journal follows the policy on corrections, retractions, and expressions of concern.

Definition. Plagiarism is the presentation of another person's thoughts or words as though they were one's own, without permission, credit, or acknowledgement, or through failure to cite the source properly. It takes several forms, from literal copying to unattributed paraphrase. In judging whether plagiarism has occurred, the journal considers the following situations.

1. Literal copying. An author reproduces another author's work word for word, in whole or in part, without permission, acknowledgement, or citation. This is established by comparing the source with the manuscript.
2. Substantial copying. An author reproduces a substantial part of another author's work without permission, acknowledgement, or citation. Substantial is understood in terms of both quantity and quality, quality referring to the relative importance of the copied passage within the work as a whole.
3. Unattributed paraphrase. An author takes ideas, words, or phrases from a source and recasts them into new sentences without citing or acknowledging the original. This is the form that is hardest to detect, and it is treated as seriously as literal copying. Changing the wording does not remove the obligation to cite.
4. Redundant publication and self plagiarism. An author reuses substantial portions of their own previously published work without citation, or divides a single study across several publications.
5. Undisclosed machine generated text. An author presents text produced by a generative artificial intelligence tool without the disclosure required by the policy on generative artificial intelligence. Fabricated references discovered at any stage are grounds for immediate rejection, and their discovery after publication is grounds for retraction.

Text recycling. A limited overlap in the description of an established method or instrument, where the author is describing a procedure used in their own earlier work and cites that earlier publication, is not treated as misconduct. Recycled text in the introduction, findings, discussion, or conclusion is.

Application to the journal's own pages. The same standard applies to material published by the journal itself, including the pages that set out its scope, its policies, and its guidance for authors. These pages are checked for originality whenever they are revised.