Aksen Journal of Contemporary Family Law
Aksen Journal of Contemporary Family Law (AJCFL) is committed to maintaining the highest standards of academic integrity, originality, and responsible scholarly publication. All manuscripts submitted to the journal are subject to plagiarism and similarity screening as part of the journal's editorial evaluation process.
Authors are responsible for ensuring that submitted manuscripts represent their own original scholarly work and that all ideas, arguments, data, quotations, paraphrases, and other materials derived from external sources are properly acknowledged and cited.
Manuscripts submitted to AJCFL are screened using recognized plagiarism-detection or similarity-checking software. The screening process assists the editorial team in identifying textual overlap with previously published or publicly available materials.
As a general requirement, the maximum acceptable overall similarity index is 20%. Manuscripts exceeding this threshold may be returned to the authors for revision, subjected to further editorial examination, or declined, depending on the nature, extent, and location of the identified similarities.
A similarity percentage is a screening indicator and not, by itself, proof of plagiarism. The editorial team evaluates the similarity report qualitatively, considering the sources of overlap, the extent of matching text, appropriate attribution, quotation practices, and the context in which similarities occur.
Legitimate similarities may arise from properly cited quotations, bibliographic entries, titles of legislation, names of institutions, standardized legal terminology, commonly used methodological language, or other unavoidable textual elements. Conversely, a manuscript with an overall similarity score below 20% may still raise plagiarism concerns if substantial unattributed copying from a particular source is identified.
AJCFL considers the following practices inconsistent with responsible scholarly publication:
Similarity screening may be conducted at different stages of the editorial process whenever necessary to protect the integrity of the scholarly record.
| Stage | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Initial Submission | To identify significant textual overlap before the manuscript proceeds to peer review. |
| After Revision | A revised manuscript may be screened again where substantial textual changes have been made or additional concerns arise. |
| Before Publication | Additional verification may be conducted when necessary before an accepted manuscript enters final publication. |
Editorial action is determined by the nature and seriousness of the similarity identified rather than by the numerical similarity score alone. Depending on the circumstances, AJCFL may:
Authors bear primary responsibility for the originality and integrity of their manuscripts. Before submission, authors should carefully check that all material derived from other works is properly quoted, paraphrased, and cited according to the journal's Chicago Manual of Style, 17th Edition referencing requirements.
Authors should also disclose where submitted material substantially overlaps with their own previously published work, conference papers, working papers, theses, dissertations, preprints, or other publicly available materials where such disclosure is relevant to editorial assessment.
AJCFL applies a maximum overall similarity threshold of 20%. However, meeting this numerical threshold does not automatically establish that a manuscript is free from plagiarism. Likewise, exceeding the threshold does not automatically establish plagiarism. Editorial judgment is based on qualitative examination of the similarity report and the scholarly context of the identified overlap.
