AI Policy
At Carolina Journal, we rely on the skill and judgment of our researchers, scholars, and writers. Their work—research, writing, fact-checking, and editorial review—is at the heart of everything we publish. AI tools, where we use them, support that work. They do not replace it.
Editorial use of AI
We use AI tools to assist with technical and editorial workflow tasks, including:
- Identifying topics and entities (people, organizations, places, concepts) in our drafts to support accurate categorization and indexing
- Generating suggested headlines and meta descriptions for editor review
- Building structured data (schema markup) that helps search engines and other systems understand our content at the entity level
The primary editorial AI tool we use is TopicalBoost, a plugin built specifically for publishers by Tallest Tree Digital. TopicalBoost analyzes drafts using natural language processing and offers AI-generated metadata suggestions. Every suggestion is reviewed, edited, and approved by a human editor before publication.
Our writers and editors may use AI tools in the ordinary course of their work—to refine prose, pressure-test arguments, transcribe interviews, or check facts against source material. We treat these tools the way we treat any other research or editing aid.
The judgment, the analysis, and the conclusions remain the responsibility of the human author and the editors who review the piece. We do not publish AI-generated commentary or research presented as the work of a Carolina Journal author.
Human review
Every piece of AI-assisted output goes through human editorial review before it appears on our site or in our publications. AI does not publish anything on its own.
Transparency
If our use of AI changes meaningfully, or if we begin to use AI in ways that affect what readers see and read, we will update this page and signpost the change clearly.