Journal of Clinical Question

Requirement for Generative AI Declaration for Manuscripts Submitted from January 1, 2026

Effective January 1, 2026, all manuscripts submitted to the Journal of Clinical Question must comply with a new requirement for the disclosure of generative AI use. Manuscripts that do not meet this requirement will not be considered for peer review. This policy is intended to promote transparency, research integrity, and the responsible use of emerging technologies in scholarly publishing.

Definition of Generative AI

Generative AI refers to a category of artificial intelligence systems capable of autonomously producing original outputs, including text, images, audio, video, code, and synthetic data, that resemble human-created content. These systems are typically based on advanced machine learning architectures, such as large language models (LLMs), diffusion models, and generative adversarial networks (GANs), which learn probabilistic representations from large-scale datasets. Despite their increasing prevalence, the use of generative AI tools in the preparation of academic manuscripts is subject to substantial restrictions and disclosure requirements imposed by many scholarly publishers and academic institutions, primarily due to concerns regarding authorship attribution, academic integrity, transparency, reproducibility, and potential bias.

Disclosure Requirement

Authors must disclose the use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process by including a statement in the core manuscript file. The use of basic tools for grammar checking, spelling correction, reference management, or similar routine editorial assistance does not require declaration. If no generative AI or AI-assisted technologies were used in the preparation of the manuscript, no declaration is required.

Required Statement Format

This statement must be placed immediately before the References list, under the heading:

“Generative AI Declaration”

During the preparation of this manuscript, the author(s) used [NAME OF TOOL/SERVICE] for the purpose of [SPECIFY PURPOSE]. The author(s) subsequently reviewed and edited the content as necessary and assume full responsibility for the accuracy and integrity of the published work.

Editorial Office

Journal of Clinical Question

Further details are provided in the Instruction for Authors and Editorial Policies.