AI Policy

Journal of English Language Teaching, Linguistics, and Literature (JETLEE) acknowledges that artificial intelligence (AI) tools and large language models (LLM) have rapidly become part of the academic landscape. These technologies open new possibilities for scholarly communication, such as faster language editing, more efficient organization of information, and support in synthesizing large bodies of data. At the same time, they introduce serious risks to research integrity, transparency, and accountability, including the production of inaccurate content, fabricated references, and the blurring of intellectual ownership.

In response to these developments, and with reference to the STM Association’s 2023 White Paper on AIin Scholarly Communications and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Position Statement on Authorship and AI Tools, Journal of English Language Teaching, Linguistics, and Literature (JETLEE)has established this policy to regulate the use of AI throughout the publication process. The policy applies to manuscript preparation, peer review, editorial decision-making, and post-publication activities. Its purpose is to ensure that the advantages offered by AI are used responsibly and do not compromise scholarly rigor, ethical responsibility, or the authors’ intellectual ownership of their work.

For Authors

Authors are permitted to use AI-assisted tools for routine improvements to their manuscripts, such as enhancing language, readability, spelling, grammar, and formatting. Such use is considered comparable to conventional editing support and therefore does not need to be disclosed, on the condition that the tools neither generate new scholarly content nor substantially change the existing scholarly content of the manuscript.

However, disclosure becomes mandatory when an AI tool makes a substantive contribution to the work. This includes situations in which AI is used to:

1. develop or refine research ideas or research questions;
2. review, organize, or synthesize the literature;
3. generate new manuscript content or substantially rewrite existing content;
4. translate substantial portions of the manuscript;
5. produce or modify code;
6. process, classify, analyze, or interpret data; or create tables, figures, images, or other research materials.

Where AI is part of the research methodology itself, authors are required to describe its use in detail in the Methods section. This description must include the name of the tool, its provider, the version used (where available), the date of access, the purpose of its use, the procedures followed, and the process by which its outputs were validated. Where necessary to ensure transparency and allow others to reproduce the study, authors should also provide the relevant prompts, outputs, or analytical protocols as supplementary material.

Author's Declaration of AI Usage

Any substantive use of generative AI must be disclosed in a dedicated section titled Declaration of AI Usage. This section should be placed after the Funding Statement and before the References.

Example: The authors used [tool name and version] to assist with [specific purpose]. All AI-assisted outputs were reviewed, verified, and revised by the authors, who take full responsibility for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of the manuscript.

If no generative AI tools were used, authors may include the following statement:

Example: No generative artificial intelligence tools were used in the preparation of this manuscript.

Disclosing responsible use of AI will not, in itself, influence the editorial decision on a manuscript. Failure to disclose substantive AI use, however, may be regarded as a research-integrity concern and handled accordingly.

Use of AI by Reviewers and Editors

The peer review and editorial process depends on strict confidentiality. Reviewers and editors must therefore not upload manuscripts, supplementary files, reviewer reports, author identities, editorial correspondence, or any other confidential materials to publicly accessible generative AI platforms or to any external system that may store, reuse, or otherwise process that content. AI must not be used as a substitute for the independent scholarly judgment of reviewers and editors. Reviewers and editors remain personally accountable for their assessments, recommendations, and decisions. A limited use of AI may be permitted only through a secure, institutionally approved system, and only when confidentiality, data protection, and appropriate editorial authorization have been fully ensured.

AI Detection and Editorial Decisions

AI-detection tools may be used to provide preliminary signals, but they are not reliable enough to serve as the sole basis for rejecting a manuscript, making an accusation, or imposing an editorial sanction. Any suspicion of undisclosed or inappropriate AI use will be examined through human editorial assessment and, where needed, by requesting clarification from the authors. Where misuse is confirmed, the journal may require revision of the manuscript, reject it, issue a correction, retract a published article, or take other measures in line with its publication ethics policies.

Published Articles

The confidentiality restrictions described above apply only to unpublished manuscripts and editorial materials. Articles that have already been published in Journal of English Language Teaching, Linguistics, and Literature (JETLEE) may be accessed and reused in accordance with the terms of their respective Creative Commons licenses, provided that proper attribution is given and the integrity of the scholarly record is preserved.