Plagiarism and Text Recycling (Self-Plagiarism)

Synonyms

Mosaic plagiarism; Patchwork plagiarism; Self-plagiarism; Verbatim plagiarism

Definition

Plagiarism is defined as “taking, using, presenting others’ ideas, data, results, writings and inventions without giving due or appropriate credit to the originator” (COPE Taxonomy 2013). The practice is commonly perceived as fraud. Plagiarism is derived from the Latin plagiarius and the Greek plagion, meaning kidnapping or kidnapper. Self-plagiarism or text recycling is defined as, “… sections of the same text appear (usually un-attributed) in more than one of an author’s own publications” (BioMed Central and COPE 2016). Whether presenting another’s ideas as one’s own, or presenting one’s own ideas as new material, publishers and editors of scholarly works consider both practices unethical. Plagiarism as ethical misconduct does not require a legal copyright violation; however, copyright violations can occur in conjunction with acts of plagiarism.

What Are the Issues?

Plagiarism and text...