Plagiarism Screening

Every manuscript submitted to Makukuhan-IJLS will be screened using Turnitin Similarity Check. Manuscripts suspected of plagiarism, self-plagiarism, duplicate publication, data fabrication, data falsification, or other forms of academic misconduct will be rejected immediately.

Plagiarism includes the use of another person's ideas, theories, arguments, words, data, tables, figures, or other intellectual property without proper acknowledgment. Authors must provide appropriate citations whenever they use, summarize, paraphrase, or develop ideas derived from previously published works.

Direct quotations must always be enclosed in quotation marks (or presented as block quotations where appropriate) and accompanied by complete citations in accordance with APA 7th Edition.

Makukuhan-IJLS follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Core Practices and reserves the right to reject or retract manuscripts that violate internationally accepted standards of publication ethics.

Similarity Policy

All manuscripts are evaluated using Turnitin before editorial review. Editorial decisions are based not only on the overall similarity percentage but also on the quality, context, and source of the matched text. Legitimate similarities resulting from references, properly quoted passages, legislation, judicial decisions, or commonly accepted technical terminology will be evaluated separately.

The journal applies the following policy:

  • Similarity Index below 20%: Eligible for editorial assessment and peer review, provided all similarities are properly cited.
  • Similarity Index between 20% and 30%: Returned to the author for major revision. Authors must improve paraphrasing, correct citations, and reduce the similarity level before resubmission.
  • Similarity Index above 30%: Rejected due to excessive textual similarity, inadequate paraphrasing, or poor citation practices.

A low similarity score does not automatically guarantee acceptance, and a high similarity score does not necessarily indicate plagiarism. The Editorial Board will evaluate each manuscript comprehensively based on originality, academic contribution, citation practices, and publication ethics.