Ethical Practices in Research

Plagiarism
• Plagiarism is presenting someone else’s work or ideas as your own,
with or without their consent, by incorporating it into your work
without full acknowledgement.
• All published and unpublished material, whether in manuscript,
printed or electronic form, is covered under this definition. Plagiarism
may be intentional or reckless, or unintentional. Under the
regulations for examinations, intentional or reckless plagiarism is a
disciplinary offence.
• Some examples of plagiarism:
• a sequence of words incorporated without quotation marks
• an unacknowledged passage paraphrased from another's work
• the use of ideas, sound recordings, computer data or images created
by others as though it were one’s own"
 Common Types of Plagiarism
• Direct Plagiarism: Direct plagiarism is the word-for-word transcription of a
section of someone else’s work, without attribution and without quotation
marks. The deliberate plagiarism of someone else's work is unethical,
academically dishonest, and grounds for disciplinary actions, including
expulsion.
• Self Plagiarism: Self-plagiarism occurs when a student submits his or her
own previous work, or mixes parts of previous works, without permission
from all professors involved.
• Mosaic Plagiarism: Mosaic Plagiarism occurs when a student borrows
phrases from a source without using quotation marks, or finds synonyms
for the author’s language while keeping to the same general structure and
meaning of the original.
• Accidental Plagiarism: Accidental plagiarism occurs when a person neglects
to cite their sources, or misquotes their sources, or unintentionally
paraphrases a source by using similar words, groups of words, and/or
sentence structure without attribution. Students must learn how to cite
their sources and to take careful and accurate notes when doing research.
 Ways to Avoid Plagiarism
• Paraphrase - So you have found information that is perfect for your research paper. Read it and put it
into your own words. Make sure that you do not copy verbatim more than two words in a row from the
text you have found. If you do use more than two words together, you will have to use quotation marks.
We will get into quoting properly soon.
• Cite - Citing is one of the effective ways to avoid plagiarism. Follow the document formatting guidelines
(i.e. APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.) used by your educational institution or the institution that issued the
research request. This usually entails the addition of the author(s) and the date of the publication or
similar information. Citing is really that simple. Not citing properly can constitute plagiarism.
• Quoting - When quoting a source, use the quote exactly the way it appears. No one wants to be
misquoted. Most institutions of higher learning frown on “block quotes” or quotes of 40 words or more.
A scholar should be able to effectively paraphrase most material. This process takes time, but the effort
pays off! Quoting must be done correctly to avoid plagiarism allegations.
• Citing Your Own Material - If some of the material you are using for your research paper was used by
you in your current class, a previous one, or anywhere else you must cite yourself. Treat the text the
same as you would if someone else wrote it. It may sound odd, but using material you have used before
is called self-plagiarism, and it is not acceptable.
• Referencing - One of the most important ways to avoid plagiarism is including a reference page or page
of works cited at the end of your research paper. Again, this page must meet the document formatting
guidelines used by your educational institution. This information is very specific and includes the
author(s), date of publication, title, and source. Follow the directions for this page carefully. You will
want to get the references right.
Classification of Plagiarism Detection Tools
 Plagiarism Detection Tools
• SafeAssignment: This anti-plagiarism checker claims to search an index of 8
billion documents available in the Web. It uses some major scholastic
databases like ProQuest™, FindArticles™ and Paper Mills during searching
and detection process.
• SafeAssignment maintains a database where user account is essential to
keep fingerprints of the submitted documents in order to avoid any legal or
copy right problem. This tool uses proprietary searching and ranking
algorithms for match detection of fingerprints with its resources. The
results of plagiarism detection is presented to the user within couple of
minutes.
• Urkund: This is another Web based service which carry out plagiarism
detection in server side. This is an integrated and automated solution for
plagiarism detection. This is a paid service which uses standard email
system for document submission and for viewing results.
• This system claims to process 300 different types of document submissions
and it searches through all available online sources. It gives more priority
to educational sources of documents more during searching.
• ithenticate: This is a successful Web based plagiarism detection tool for any text
document. This tool is not required to install in client computer. This application
compares input documents against the document sources available on the Web.
This well-known tool is used by most well-known journal publishers. It is a easy to
use, quick plagiarism checker for professionals. It is designed to be used by
institutions rather than personal, but lastly they provided a limit service for single
plagiarism detection user like master and doctoral students and this allows them
to check a single document of up to 25,000 words.
• Turnitin: This an another successful Web based tool provided by iParadigms. The
user is needed to upload test document to the system database for plagiarism
check the system creates a fingerprint of the document and stores it. In this tool,
detection and report generation is carried out remotely. Turnitin is already
accepted by 15,000 Institutions and 30 Million Students due to easy to use
interface, support of large repository, detailed text plagiarism check and well
organized report generation. It can be considered as one of the best plagiarism
checkers for teachers.
• Viper: This free plagiarism scanner scans the submitted documents against 10
billion sources and documents present in a computer. It gives peace of mind
regarding any accidental plagiarism. This tool offers unlimited resubmitting of
documents and it provides links to plagiarised work in the reports.
• Plagiarism Scanner: This is a fast and effective plagiarism detection tool for
students, instructors, publishers, bloggers since 2008. It is a user-friendly
online tool. This tool conducts through an in-detail detection for plagiarism
of a submitted document within a few minute only. This tool runs against
all Internet resources, including Websites, digital databases, and online
libraries (such as Questia, ProQuest, etc). It generates a full report,
indicating the overall originality rating and the percentage of plagiarized
materials in the submitted text.
• PlagScan: PlagScan has separate packages for schools, universities and
companies. To use this we need a paid account to open. It is not a free
service but if someone does not like the service, membership cancellation
is possible and money will be refunded.
• PlagTracker: It is a popular plagiarism checker for students, teachers,
publishers and Website owners. It has a large database of academic
publications in million and provides detail report of the scanned work. If
someone wants to check assignments in bulk, it requires to subscribe
monthly. This tool found useful to ensure whether a test document is
plagiarized or not.
 Laws concerned with Plagiarism
• The right not to be plagiarised is not recognised by any of the statute in
India, but the section 57 of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957 gives authors
the right to claim authorship of their works among other things.
• The section 57 of the Indian Copyright Act,1957 grants to the authors the
“special right” to be attributed for their work. It is a moral right and
perpetual in nature. The statute recognises the right to attribution
analogous to the rights not to be plagiarised.
• Section 63 of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957 is considers infringement as
the criminal offence and awards the same punishment for both i.e., the
violation of section 57 and the copyright infringement.
• The convicted infringers are awarded imprisonment that ranges between
six months to three years under section 63 of the Act. They have also
compensate in monetary terms for the act of infringing.
• Section 63 (A) of the same act stipulates an enhanced penalty for second
and subsequent convictions.
 Civil Wrongs and Criminal Offences
• Plagiarism is actually considered as an unethical conduct of a person and
not a crime by itself.
• The violation of an author’s right to be credited and copyright
infringement are both civil wrongs and criminal charges can also be filed
against the violator.
• In case of a civil suit, the remedies that can be awarded are : injunctions to
restrain further infringement, damages, the delivery of accounts of profit
and both infringing copies of the work used to make them. Certain
administrative actions may also be taken.
• A convicted infringer is liable to be imprisoned between six months and
three years, and to be fined between fifty thousand and two lakh rupees
under section 63 of the Act. The punishment is enhanced for subsequent
convictions.
• Sometimes College and University rules for student conduct takes
Plagiarism as an academic offense and not a legal offense. But this is not
the actual case. Plagiarism is not only an academic offence but also a legal
one.