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Vanessa Zuleta Quintero

ID 9011046

Plagiarism (RCR-Basic)
Universidad de Antioquia - Researchers RCR

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Plagiarism (RCR-Basic)
Content Author

Miguel Roig, PhD

St. John's University

Introduction

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For many students, and even some professionals, writing is not an easy task.
Communicating across languages, particularly given di erences in alphabetical
systems and grammar, can create additional di culties. Ethical scholarship implies a
contract between authors and readers whereby readers assume that the information
conveyed by the authors is, to the best of the authors' knowledge, always accurate
and complete, and that, unless otherwise noted, any ideas, text, data, or other
content have not been previously disseminated, either in part or in whole, and
represent the authors' own original work.

These principles are equally applicable to professionals and students, regardless of

the scholarly discipline. Given that plagiarism is a form of research misconduct, it is
important to examine this type of transgression.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

Recognize the parameters of plagiarism according to de nitions developed by U.S.

federal agencies.
Discuss basic principles of scholarship, such as the use of citations and
quotations, as they relate to the issue of plagiarism.
Describe the distinction between summarizing and paraphrasing.
Recognize proper paraphrasing skills and use of citations.

Definitions of Plagiarism

Plagiarism as Academic Dishonesty

Plagiarism is a transgression that can occur in all areas of learning and scholarship,
including the sciences, the arts, and the humanities. In educational settings,
plagiarism is a form of academic dishonesty. Although it can manifest in many forms,

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the most common type occurs when authors take portions of text from one or more
sources and pass that material as their own writing. Plagiarism can also occur in a
variety of subtle ways. For example, one form of plagiarism occurs when students fail
to enclose borrowed, verbatim text in quotation marks. Even when a citation is
added to indicate the origin of the idea conveyed by the text, the failure to enclose
the text of others in quotation marks misleads the reader as to whom the real author
of the text is.

Another form of plagiarism occurs when an author super cially modi es the original
text by substituting a word here or there and adds a citation, in the belief that the
resulting "paraphrase" is su ciently original. A case of plagiarism can have very
serious consequences for the o ending individual. These can range from a failing
grade for an assignment to expulsion from the institution, depending on the nature
of the o ense.

Plagiarism as Research Misconduct

In the U.S., as in much of the rest of the world, plagiarism along with fabrication and
falsi cation is considered a form of research misconduct. Several federal agencies
have policies related to plagiarism.

The Office of Science and Technology Policy

In the U.S., the federal de nition of plagiarism comes from the O ce of Science and
Technology Policy (OSTP). According to OSTP (2000):

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Other U.S. federal agencies, such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the
National Institutes of Health (NIH), have adopted OSTP's de nition and further
elaborated on the conditions under which a charge of plagiarism may be made.

The National Science Foundation

The NSF (Research Misconduct 2002) has stated that plagiarism can occur while
"proposing or performing research funded by NSF, reviewing research proposals
submitted to NSF, or in reporting research results funded by NSF."

Thus, an author can commit plagiarism in an unpublished work if, for example, that
work contains misappropriated material without proper attribution.

The Office of Research Integrity

The U.S. O ce of Research Integrity (ORI) oversees matters related to research

integrity within the various agencies that operate under the U.S. Public Health
Service, including the National Institutes of Health.

The ORI (1994) has also adopted and further elaborated on the OSTP's de nition of
plagiarism: “As a general working de nition, ORI considers plagiarism to include both
the theft or misappropriation of intellectual property and the substantial
unattributed textual copying of another's work. It does not include authorship or
credit disputes.”

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Credit must be given with the greatest clarity in order to avoid ambiguity in the
reader's understanding regarding which material is the authors' own and which has
been taken from another source. Simply providing a reference citation might not be
su cient in some cases.

Another element worth clarifying is the connection between a charge of plagiarism

and a dispute between authors. ORI (1994) does not consider an authorship dispute,
for example, whether a particular person should be included in the author list on a
manuscript, as an instance of plagiarism. However, other agencies and organizations
may consider such situations as instances of plagiarism.

Plagiarism of Ideas

Dr. Smith's Research Methodology

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ORI (1994) states that "the theft or misappropriation of intellectual property includes
the unauthorized use of ideas or unique methods obtained by a privileged
communication, such as a grant or manuscript review." For example, a speaker at a
conference might mention an idea for an experiment that other individuals might
want to pursue. An audience member who decides to carry out the experiment
would be ethically obligated to attribute the basis for the idea to the speaker (there
are formal conventions for doing so in the di erent professions). In addition, it is
considered good practice to contact the person who originally articulated an idea
before others decide to pursue it.

Plagiarism and Proper Attribution

In general, principles of good scholarship stipulate that when writing about the ideas
of other people, unless those ideas are considered common knowledge, authors
must identify their source so that readers may consult the original information.

Common Knowledge

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Whether a certain piece of information represents common knowledge depends on a

number of factors, including the readership of the author's work. For example, if a
student were to write a history paper and mention that George Washington was the
rst U.S. president, that student would not be expected to indicate the source for
that piece of information because it is considered common knowledge even amongst
middle school children.

However, if a college student writes a paper for a rst-year electrical engineering

class and discusses certain general elements of Kirchho 's Current and Voltage Laws,
the student would likely be expected to cite sources from which the relevant material
was derived. On the other hand, an electrical engineering professor who should
know this same material well and writes on this same topic in a technical paper for
an engineering journal whose readers are similarly expected to know Kirchho 's
Laws, might not need to cite its source as the concepts being written about would be
considered commonly known to both author and audience. However, if the same
professor were writing a similar paper to an audience from a di erent discipline, for
example, biomedical scientists who likely are not as familiar with Kirchho ’s Laws,
citations would likely be expected.

Citations and the Use of Quotation Marks

A basic principle of scholarship that is common to all disciplines can be summarized

as follows:

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Typically, the work of others is identi ed with formal reference citations. Citation
formats can vary widely. For example, some citations are listed alphabetically by
author and others are listed chronologically by order of appearance. The date may
also appear at the end of the citation or after the last author. The speci c format that
should be used depends on several factors, such as the individual discipline involved,
the requirements of the course for which the paper is being written, or the journal to
which the manuscript is being submitted for publication. In the event that the
material in question was derived from non-published sources, such as a speech or
even a personal conversation, the standard convention in the relevant discipline, if
one exists, should be applied.

Consider the following original material from an article in the journal Science:

If another author wanted to use this same word-for-word paragraph in a paper, a

standard convention is for the paragraph to be enclosed in quotation marks, or

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indented, and a citation added. While the use of quotation marks is standard practice
in the humanities, it is not as common in many science and engineering journals.

Some journal editors may require authors to rewrite the quoted material in their own
words instead of quoting word-for-word and using quotation marks. Di erent
academic and research communities in the U.S. have di erent conventions on the
use of quotation marks, but they would call the practice plagiarism if other people's
work is taken word-for-word and used without an indication as to where that work
originated.

The Doctoral Dissertation

In the academic context, some instructors allow students to use some quoted
material in class assignments. However, this technique is open to abuse. For
example, some students might try to ll a term paper with a string of direct quotes
from various sources, which in e ect means that a large amount of the paper was
written by others. In general, this is an inadequate writing practice and may imply a
fundamental lack of understanding of the material quoted by the students or an
inability to paraphrase it in their own words.

Summarizing and Paraphrasing

In support of their own research, academic authors typically cite the work of others
and, in doing so, they often need to describe what others have done. Authors do this
mostly by summarizing previous research and, at times, paraphrasing some of their
more relevant details.

Summarizing

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When summarizing others' work, one should provide a condensed version of the
other researchers' ndings with the necessary details that logically lead to one's own
work. For example, with respect to the previously noted paragraph by Liang et al., a
summary of that paragraph might be as follows:

Notice that in the summary, some key words from the original are not enclosed in
quotation marks. In cases in which highly technical text is used, certain unique terms
and perhaps even short phrases from the original may have to be used in a summary
or paraphrase because there are no synonyms or appropriate phraseology that can
be used as substitutes. However, such reuse tends only to be permissible when
paraphrasing or summarizing from methods sections. Note that, as done in the
above example, a citation must be provided to identify the origin of the material that
was summarized.

Read more about common citation practices.

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is another strategy that authors sometimes rely on to describe others'

work. This process requires that authors convey the ideas expressed in the original
text using their own words, that is, their own so-called “writing voice.” Unlike a

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summary, which condenses a large amount of text into a smaller amount, a

paraphrase expresses approximately the same level of detail found in the original. As
with a summary, a paraphrase is not enclosed in quotation marks, but a citation
must be added to indicate the source of the original material.

Read more about how to paraphrase properly.

Paraphrasing Myths

Unfortunately, too many writers are not well-informed about what constitutes
appropriate paraphrasing. For example, some might believe that it is appropriate to
simply take the original text and use it as their own as long as a citation is added.
However, in accordance with academic writing standards in the U.S. and in many
other countries, such a practice could constitute plagiarism. Although the author of
the idea conveyed in the paraphrase is credited with the added citation, the reader is
misled about the true authorship of the text.

Others believe that if material is thoroughly paraphrased, then a citation is not

needed. This, too, is incorrect and could be classi ed as another case of plagiarism,
for although they may be using their own words to convey others' ideas, they have
not credited the original source of the ideas and thus paraphrasing without citation
represents a form of intellectual theft.

Many cases of plagiarism have involved these two types of transgressions. For
example, a stem cell article was retracted because two short paragraphs were
plagiarized verbatim (Abbott 2009). In another case, an article on plant genetics was
retracted because a single paragraph had been paraphrased; the author had failed
to provide a citation to the original source (Sticklen 2008).

A question that often emerges is whether there is an "o cial" minimum number of
consecutive words that can be used from another source before the practice
constitutes plagiarism. At this point, there is no widespread agreement on the issue.

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Read more about ORI, plagiarism, and paraphrasing practices.

Perhaps the most common misconception about paraphrasing is the notion that as
long as some of the words are changed and a citation added, the resulting
"paraphrase" is acceptable. Depending on a number of factors, including the extent
to which the original text was changed, such "light" or "super cial" paraphrasing
could lead to a charge of plagiarism.

Read more about inappropriate paraphrasing practices.

Citation Placement

A common concern is where and when citations should be added. For example,
some students who are worried about being accused of plagiarism tend to overuse
citations and provide the same citation after each consecutive paraphrased or
summarized sentence from the same source.

This approach may seem awkward because of the repetition of the citation. Authors
can use a variety of literary mechanisms to inform the reader that each sentence is
derived from the same source. Consider this version:

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It should be pointed out, however, that had each sentence been derived from a
different source, then the various citations would have been appropriate as the
following version of the paragraph illustrates:

Like any complex skill, it takes practice to write in a way that avoids the awkward and
sometimes inappropriate use of citations. One of the recommended ways to acquire
this skill is to read well-written articles and then practice writing papers. Good
mentoring and editorial feedback can also help.

Self-Plagiarism

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Since plagiarism refers to presenting someone's work as though it is one's own, it

does not seem possible to plagiarize oneself. Some scholars reject the term self-
plagiarism for exactly that reason. Instead, they may use terms such as duplicate
publication, repetitive publication, or redundancy. In the sciences, however, self-
plagiarism continues to be used as an umbrella term that encompasses several
practices typically involving the inappropriate reuse of one’s own previously
disseminated work.

At the academic level, self-plagiarism is often discussed in the context of turning in

an assignment for a course that has already been submitted for a previous course.
Similarly, self-plagiarism can occur when an author submits a manuscript to a journal
that is the same or very similar to a paper that has already been published in another
journal. Splitting one project into as many papers as possible, typically referred to as
fragmented publication, can also constitute a form of self-plagiarism, especially if
large portions of text or data are reused in the di erent papers.

Text Reuse

A type of self-plagiarism that merits discussion is the practice of reusing one's own
previously disseminated written work. It is also known as text recycling and has
come under considerable scrutiny in recent years. Many journals require that

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authors inform the editor of any material in their submission that has been
previously published by the same authors. In fact, journals have retracted articles
after discovering that large amounts of text from an earlier published article
appeared in the retracted one (Chawla 2016; Cressey 2012).

Authors are typically required to inform journal editors as to the extent of overlap
between papers (for example, Nature Publishing Group). Even if a journal accepts
some level of overlap, reusing text or other content from a prior publication may
have detrimental legal consequences for authors who do not hold the copyright to
their own work. The reuse of content can be in violation of copyright law.

Read more about the reuse of text in journal articles.

Summary

Plagiarism is one of the major forms of research misconduct. It is also a behavior that
is prohibited by academic dishonesty policies and student honor codes. To avoid
plagiarism and other unethical writing practices, authors must always be mindful of
the basic principles of proper scholarship and, particularly, of ethical writing. The
implicit assumption on the part of readers is that the work being read is accurate,
that it was written by the individuals listed as authors, and that the work has not
been previously distributed. Authors must make a sincere e ort to uphold basic
ethical principles such as honesty and integrity in their writing and in all other areas
of their professional lives.

References

Abbott, Alison. 2009. "Editor Retracts Sperm-Creation Paper." Nature News, July
30. Accessed June 6, 2015.
American Chemical Society (ACS). 2015. “Ethical Guidelines to Publication of
Chemical Research.” Accessed March 28, 2019.

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American Psychological Association. 2010. Publication Manual of the American

Psychological Association (6th Edition). Washington, DC.
Chawla, Dalmeet Singh. 2016. “Researcher in Brazil earns 12th retraction for
recycling text and figures.” Retraction Watch, August 16. Accessed May 13, 2019.
Cressey, Daniel. 2012. "Eminent Chemist Denies Self-Plagiarism in 'Space
Dinosaurs Paper." Nature News Blog, April 25. Accessed June 6, 2015.
O ce of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). 2000. "Federal Research
Misconduct Policy." Federal Register 65(235): 76260-4. Accessed July 24, 2019.
Research Misconduct, 45 CFR § 689.1 (2002).
Shafer, Steven L. 2011. "You Will Be Caught." Anesthesia and Analgesia 112(3):491-3.
Sticklen, Mariam B. 2008. "Retraction: Plant Genetic Engineering for Biofuel
Production: Toward Affordable Cellulosic Ethanol." Nature Review Genetics
11:308. Accessed June 6, 2015.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, O ce of Research Integrity (ORI).
1994. "ORI Policy on Plagiarism." ORI Newsletter 3(1). Accessed June 6, 2015.

Original Release: August 2012

Last Updated: May 2019

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