Ethics of Writing an Article: Plagiarism
Compliance with laws, rules and regulations is required everywhere, including in the process of research, where there must be a set of principles called research ethics applicable for all researchers, faculty members, and students.
Kolin (2002) believes that “ethical writing is clear, accurate, fair, and honest. Ethical writing is a reflection of ethical practice.”
Writing is an implicit contract between the author and the readers where the reader assumes that the author is the sole producer of the written work and that if the author borrows any idea, he/she clearly cites the reference information to avoid the violation of the spirit of the contract, and that the author makes every effort to convey information and ideas in the best way possible and to the best of his/her ability.
Milan Kundera, a widely recognized French author, believes that “a novel that does not discover a hitherto unknown segment of existence is immoral. Knowledge is the novel’s only morality.”
Therefore, to write ethically means avoiding plagiarism, and resisting the impulse to make up “facts”.
Committee On Publication Ethics (COPE)
The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to define best practice in the ethics of scholarly publishing and to assist editors, publishers, etc. to achieve this.
COPE defines plagiarism as a fraud that happens when somebody presents the work of others (data, words or theories) as if they were his/her own and without proper acknowledgment.
Plagiarism is one of the three major types of scientific misconduct, defined by US Public Health Service, 1989, the other two being falsification and fabrication. It is a very serious form of ethical misconduct, and the most widely recognized and one of the most serious violations of the contract between the reader and the writer.
That’s why in all scholarly, artistic, and scientific disciplines, plagiarism has been addressed widely and globally and concern about this concept in the international community has led to the development of guidelines by Committee On Publication Ethics (COPE).
Elizabeth Wager on behalf of COPE Council states that the COPE Code of Conduct notes that editors should ‘maintain the integrity of the academic record’ and ‘should take all reasonable steps to ensure the quality of the material they publish’.
Types of plagiarism
There are different types of plagiarism with respect to the gravity and frequency of this phenomenon.
Direct Plagiarism
Direct or verbatim plagiarism occurs when an author copies the text of another author, word for word, without the use of quotation marks or attribution, thus passing it as his or her own.
Example:
| Writer:
In ages which have no record these islands were the home of millions of happy birds; the resort of a hundred times more millions of fishes, of sea lions, and other creatures. |
Source:
“In ages which have no record these islands were the home of millions of happy birds, the resort of a hundred times more millions of fishes, of sea lions, and other creatures. |
Solution
The student author needs to enclose the quoted passages in quotation marks and include citations in the text (parenthetical documentation).
Paraphrasing plagiarism
The most common type of plagiarism is paraphrasing plagiarism in which the plagiarists make some minor changes in someone else’s writing and uses it as his/her own.
Example:
| Writer:
The same factors apply to developing complex skills in a classroom setting as to developing complex skills in any setting. A response must be induced, then reinforced as it gets closer to the desired behavior. Reinforcers have to be scheduled carefully, and cues have to be withdrawn gradually so that the new behaviors can be transferred and maintained.
|
Source:
According to Gredler (2001), the same factors apply to developing complex skills in a classroom setting as to developing complex skills in any setting. A response must be induced, then reinforced as it gets closer to the desired behavior. Reinforcers have to be scheduled carefully, and cues have to be withdrawn gradually so that the new behaviors can be transferred and maintained. |
Solution
When paraphrasing another author, be sure to include the proper citation. Paraphrasing is a great way to summarize a long work or to make a complicated piece of text more accessible, but if you do not cite your source, you are in danger of plagiarizing.
Auto-plagiarism
Auto-plagiarism, also known as self-plagiarism or duplication, happens when an author reuses significant portions of his or her previously published work without attribution.
Mosaic Plagiarism
This type of plagiarism which is also known as patchwork plagiarism is considered very difficult to detect. It is intentional and dishonest, in which the plagiarist inserts other author’s phrases or text within his/her own research.
Example:
| Writer:
Only two years later, all these friendly Sioux were suddenly plunged into new conditions, including starvation, martial law on all their reservations, and constant urging by their friends and relations to join in warfare against the treacherous government that had kept faith with neither friend nor foe.
|
Source:
“In ages which have no record these islands were the home of millions of “Contrast the condition into which all these friendly Indians are suddenly plunged now, with their condition only two years previous: martial law now in force on all their reservations; themselves in danger of starvation, and constantly exposed to the influence of emissaries from their friends and relations, urging them to join in fighting this treacherous government that had kept faith with nobody–neither with friend nor with foe.”
|
Accidental Plagiarism
An unintentional or accidental paraphrasing occurs when a writer fails to follow proper scholarly procedures for citation without an explicit intent to cheat. The writer neglects to cite sources, and misquotes them.
| Examples:
· Failure to cite a source that is not common knowledge. · Failure to “quote” or block quote author’s exact words, even if cited. · Failure to put a paraphrase in your own words, even if cited. · Failure to put a summary in your own words, even if cited. · Failure to be loyal to a source. |
COPE also categorizes plagiarism in approximately the same fields but more wider and general:
- Extent: copying of entire papers or chapters which are republished as the work of the plagiarist
- Originality of copied material:
- Position/ context: Certain sections of research reports may be more likely to include non-original material. In particular, the Methods section may describe widely-used techniques.
- Referencing/attribution: Academic publications are expected to reference other works and may also quote from them. Inexperienced or poorly trained authors may mistakenly believe that so long as another work has been cited, parts of it can be reproduced in their own work.
- Intention: Intention to deceive is often considered a factor distinguishing misconduct from careless work or honest error. However, it is usually impossible to prove intent and therefore may be less useful in practice than in theory.
- Author seniority: Since editors may believe that some forms of plagiarism result from poor mentorship or supervision rather than intentional misconduct, their response may vary according to the seniority of the authors involved.
- Language: Text matching software will only detect text copying in the same language. However, republication of an unattributed translation of another person’s work is also plagiarism, although it is harder to detect and may be harder to prove unless extensive.
How to detect plagiarism?
Sharma and Singh (2011) consider plagiarism in most of the time an unintended behavior, saying but it “can tarnish the image of an author very badly. Reputed journals consider plagiarism as a highly unethical practice and they strongly depreciate such behaviors.”
Detecting Plagiarism is a difficult task and if left unidentified will pose key threats to the health of scientific literature.
In most cases, knowledgeable reviewers “suspect” plagiarism in a particular field and their expertise helps them catch subtle defects easily.
Electronic plagiarism-checks are other tools to detect plagiarism; they indicate the suspicious areas and then carefully compare both articles in parallel. Grammar Check provides following examples for this type of plagiarism check:
- Copyscape
- Grammarly
- Writecheck
- Plagscan
- Turnitin
- Plagium
- Scanmyessay
To detect replication, abstract similarity is a useful method, but comparison of full text article is more helpful.
The manual assessment of full text is very demanding but it is highly specific and enables efficient verification.
How many of these plagiarism types have you encountered? How did you deal with them? Please share your thoughts with us in the comments section.
References:
https://publicationethics.org/files/Discussion%20document.pdf
https://plagiarism.duke.edu/unintent/
https://www.grammarcheck.net/review-10-sites-that-check-for-plagiarism/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3109843/
https://www.utc.edu/library/help/tutorials/plagiarism/examples-of-plagiarism.php
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