Editor's Note [Volume 23 No. 7 (2023)]

https://doi.org/10.18697/ajfand.122.ED131

PLAGIARISM

Plagiarism is when you take someone else's ideas or words and pass them as your own. Plagiarism as one can imagine is fairly a challenge within the world of the written word, where we are supposed to be original. When I started this journal, the number one objective was to promote a good writing culture, scholarly enough to be recognized internationally. I have always told first-time authors: “Once you publish with us successfully, you will have it easy publishing your second and subsequent papers anywhere”. Secondly, I was keen to see generation rather than importation of knowledge. What does that mean? Each one of us has been endowed with a brain and then we acquire the ability to think, talk and communicate. We may share all these abilities, but it is amazing how individually unique it is and also how so diversely gifted we are. What we can access in terms of nurturing, education and broader socialization can and will certainly influence these abilities. I discovered there was a dearth of published works on food systems by African scientists resulting in limited sharing internationally. One of my key satisfactions managing this journal which I started a little over 2 decades ago, is that scientists have improved their writing capabilities and received promotions for publishing and working with us. Knowledge and especially new knowledge generation is very important for life progression and development. One of the driving mottos is that no culture has a monopoly on knowledge, and no knowledge is superior to another. Anyone can generate new knowledge, and this adds to the body of what is known globally. The worst thing one can do in writing of any form is to start using other people's generated knowledge and calling it one’s own without attribution. It is both illegal (where countries have requisite laws) and unethical to steal someone else's idea or intellectual property, and this can end one's career, and indeed there have been high-ranking personalities who have been stripped of their certificates because of court-proven plagiarism. At AJFAND, we check for plagiarism, and the tool we have does not do this one hundred percent. So far, however, the tool has worked well for us.


The concern we face now is the emergence of AI’s ChatGPT where a manuscript has been generated through non-human means. So far, the term plagiarism does not cover this. I truly need information on this. I would appreciate any advice from our readership. Thank you in advance.

In this issue, we have 14 well-reviewed manuscripts. Please enjoy.


Ruth Khasaya Oniang'o
Editor-in-Chief, AJFAND
ORCID: 0009-0005-8344-9093