Plagiarism Policy

Statement and Policy on Plagiarism

1. Zero Tolerance Policy & Definition

Journal of Social Studies (JSS) applies a Zero tolerance towards plagiarism and establishes specific actions and penalties when plagiarism is identified in a submitted manuscript.

Definition: Plagiarism involves the "use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work."

Policy: Papers must be original, unpublished, and not pending publication elsewhere. Any material taken verbatim from another source needs to be clearly identified as different from the present original text by (1) indentation, (2) use of quotation marks, and (3) identification of the source.

Any text exceeding fair use standards (more than two or three sentences) or any graphic material reproduced from another source requires permission from the copyright holder and original author(s), alongside proper source identification. All submitted papers are screened for similarity using Turnitin / iThenticate.

2. Similarity Level & Editorial Actions

The editorial board evaluates the similarity index report and applies the following guidelines:

Similarity Index above 40%: Article is outright rejected due to poor citation and/or poor paraphrasing. NO RESUBMISSION is accepted.

Similarity Index (10% - 30%): Sent back to the author for improvement (provide correct citations to all similarity points and perform proper paraphrasing).

Similarity Index Less than 10%: Accepted or citation improvement may be required (proper citations must be provided to all outsourced texts).

Note for cases 2 and 3: Authors must revise the article carefully, add required citations, do good paraphrasing, and resubmit with a new similarity report showing NO PLAGIARISM and a similarity score of less than 10%.

3. Additional Information & Self-Plagiarism Policy

Authors are fully responsible for the contents of their papers. If a second case of severe plagiarism by the same author(s) is identified, the Editorial Board may enforce a permanent ban on future submissions.

This policy applies equally to material reproduced from an author's previous publications. Proper referencing and permission from the copyright holder are mandatory. Simultaneous submissions with significant overlap with other journals will be treated as severe plagiarism cases.

Conference papers submitted in identical or expanded forms must identify the conference details and secure copyright permission to republish. However, material from unpublished presentations or non-English translations with declared original titles and permissions are handled according to specific journal guidelines.