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Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy for the Journal of International Women’s Studies

As AI tools develop and their use has become widespread, we recognize both the opportunities that these tools afford and their limitations for the field of feminist publishing. To promote ethics and the integrity of authorship and expertise, we are distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable uses of AI in our journal as follows:

Acceptable Uses of AI

  • AI tools may be used for translation, grammar, and word choice, to improve readability and clarity of meaning in the English language. Yet we caution authors from losing their own authorial voice by relying too heavily on AI-revision at the sentence level. As a feminist journal, the JIWS values linguistic diversity and personal voice.
  • AI tools may be used to generate tables, graphs, and figures from data drawn from accredited sources or based on the author’s own data and analysis.
  • AI tools may be used to help summarize sources in a literature review section. However, authors are responsible for consulting the source itself and fact-checking the accuracy of the summary and the legitimacy of the source, since AI sometimes creates non-existent sources.
  • AI tools may be used to outline or organize the author’s material in a logical way into sections or paragraphs, according to conventions of their discipline.
  • AI tools may be used to manage and correct references and citation practice. Yet the author is responsible for checking accuracy and avoiding plagiarism.
  • AI tools may be used to synthesize data and identify patterns that will then be analyzed by the author.

Unacceptable Uses of AI

  • Using AI to generate analysis of evidence and its significance (i.e., discussion of findings or textual analysis). These are key functions of human authorship.
  • Using AI to generate conclusions or recommendations. These are key functions of authorship based on expertise and human experience.
  • Using AI to generate the central argument of the paper, which is a key function of authorship.
  • Using AI to generate the full text of a paper, thus misrepresenting AI content as the author’s own ideas and research.
  • Using AI to fabricate data (either quantitative or qualitative). Data based on field work should be drawn from authentic encounters with human participants.
  • Citing AI-fabricated, non-existent sources that cannot be verified, or citing scholarship that the author has not consulted to ensure accuracy of any AI-generated paraphrasing of ideas. Authors must also avoid plagiarism of language from the source by citing exact quotations where appropriate.
  • Failing to disclose usage of AI tools (see disclosure policy below)

The JIWS AI Disclosure Policy

We hope that full disclosure of the usage of AI as tools for research and writing will enhance the integrity and ethics of the JIWS and will build trust between readers and authors. In that vein, we require authors to do the following:

  1. Authors should disclose, in the Acknowledgments section at the end of the paper, any AI programs that were used in the preparation and writing of their papers and for what specific purposes. Significant uses of AI could also be discussed in a Methodology section.
  2. At the level of sentence or paragraph, authors may cite AI use according to the style guide of their discipline. See https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/how-to-cite-chatgpt and https://style.mla.org/citing-generative-ai/ for examples of how to cite AI-generated content.
  3. If no AI tools were used in the preparation and writing of the paper, the author should include a statement to that effect in an Acknowledgments section.