Plagiarism and similarity

Plagiarism is the use of another person's words, ideas, data, images or results without proper acknowledgement. Journal Law and Justice does not tolerate plagiarism in any form and checks every manuscript for it.

How manuscripts are checked

1. Every submission is checked with similarity-detection software against published literature, the web and other submissions before peer review.
2. The editor reads the similarity report. The overall percentage is a guide only: what matters is where the overlap is and whether it is properly quoted and cited.
3. Accepted manuscripts are checked again before publication.

What counts as plagiarism

• Copying text, figures, tables or data from another source without quotation marks and citation.
• Paraphrasing another work closely without acknowledging it.
• Translating another author's work into another language and presenting it as original.
• Self-plagiarism: reusing substantial parts of the authors' own published work without citation, including publishing the same results twice (duplicate or redundant publication) or splitting one study into several articles (salami slicing).
• Using text or images produced by generative tools that reproduce others' work without attribution.

What happens when it is found

• Before publication: depending on the extent, the authors are asked to rewrite and cite properly, or the manuscript is declined. Serious cases may be reported to the authors' institution.
• After publication: the case is handled under the corrections and retractions policy and may lead to a correction or retraction.
• All cases follow the relevant COPE flowchart and the authors are given the chance to respond.

Methods sections and standard phrases naturally overlap with earlier work. Reusing a short description of one's own method is acceptable when the earlier paper is cited.