Screening for Plagiarism

All manuscripts submitted to Customary Law Review are checked for similarity using [Turnitin] before being sent to reviewers. Manuscripts with an overall similarity index above 20%, or more than 3% from any single source, are returned to the authors for revision or declined. The similarity count excludes the bibliography and properly quoted material.

The similarity score is a starting point for the editor's judgment rather than a mechanical rule. The editor examines the similarity report to distinguish acceptable overlap, such as standard legal terminology or quoted statutory texts, from unattributed copying of ideas or text.

The journal treats the following as plagiarism:

• Copying text, data, or ideas from another source without attribution
• Self-plagiarism, meaning the reuse of substantial portions of an author's own published work without citation
• Translation plagiarism, meaning the translation of another work, or of the author's own earlier publication, without acknowledgment
• Paraphrasing another work so closely that it retains the original structure and argument without citation

If plagiarism is found after publication, the article will be handled under the Correction and Retraction policy.