Plagiarism

 

1.       Introducion

The term is Plagiarism (“plagiary”) derived from the Latin word ‘‘Plagiarius’’which means a “kidnapper” and it was first described in literature by the dramatist Ben Jonson in 1601 to describe literary theft. Despite all the strict, stringent, detailed and open instructions for researchers worldwide, there are occasional instances of dishonesty regarding research publications.

Merriam–Webster dictionary defines plagiarism as (a) The theft and use of other people's ideas or words as yours; b) Use of sources without attribution; c) Literary theft and d) presenting some ideas as own and as new, while this idea already exists in other source.

The first attempt to address plagiarism was in 1992 in the USA by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) and then later in 1997 in the UK by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) both of which gave guidelines for research, scientific integrity and a set of principles to detect and present plagiarism.

2.       Types of plagiarism:

Plagiarism can be classified in many ways.

2.1.         Intentional and Unintentional Plagiarism

Also called Deliberate & Accidental Plagiarism. These two forms of plagiarism are differentiated based on degree of seriousness of the issue. Where, accidental plagiarism is considered to be of less severity and can be forgiven without giving harsh punishments, the same is not true for deliberate form of plagiarism. But most of the times, it is very difficult to rule out the possibilities and identify what form of plagiarism was performed.

2.1.1.     Intentional or Deliberate plagiarism occurs when the author deliberately, intentionally or knowingly copies entire text, paragraph or data and presents as its own. When a person is fully aware of copying the material or buying material from other sources and not giving credit to the source of origin, then such an act falls under the category of deliberate plagiarism. There are various examples of intentional plagiarism. For example, if a person buys someone else's work, copies material from the pre-published sources (in print or online), etc. If a person employs another person to write a study paper for them on their behalf and then present it as their own, then this is considered intentional plagiarism too. Another example is, where a person copies a material from its original source and then ask another person to translate it in his/her own words.

2.1.2.     Unintentional or Accidental Plagiarism occurs when the author either is not aware of such research, is unaware of the ethics in writing or does not know how to cite and thus presents similar articles. Sometimes, the students are naïve and are aware of the rules and guidelines of avoiding plagiarism. They are not educated about the proper ways of citing materials and are always in doubt while referencing material. Moreover, because of this doubtful situation, the students skip the step of citations. Hence, they fall prey to plagiarism. To avoid such situations, both the teachers and the students should learn to bridge this gap by communicating.

2.2.  Text/words Plagiarism or Direct Plagiarism

The commonest form of plagiarism is of text is known as “copy-cut-paste” or “word-to-word” writing wherein complete sentences, paragraph, tables or even pictures are reproduced from the original text without change and without proper acknowledgement and citation. Described as “…copying a portion of text from another source without giving credit to its author and without enclosing the borrowed text in quotation marks.” Earlier, plagiarizing text from an article also required considerable hard work as access to resources was limited. Today, with the advancement of technology, plagiarism is effortless. Because the information is easily available online and can then be copied.  With use of computers and the internet this form of plagiarism is very prevalent.

2.3.   Ideas/data Plagiarism

If a person came up with a new and unique idea, concept or problem to a solution, then it belongs to him or her. If any other person uses that particular idea or concept in his/her study and fails to acknowledge its true source of origin or acknowledge the person who came up with this innovative idea, then that person is committing plagiarism and it is part of academic distrust, breach of confidentiality and deceitful act. Copying of ideas is a common form of plagiarism wherein someone else’s ideas, presentations, audio or video files, thoughts, inferences or suggestions are made into research and presented as own without proper acknowledgement. This is of course very difficult to detect or prove. Some other methods are taking ideas from books, previously published thesis, journals, magazines, conferences or meetings.

2.4.      Source Plagiarism

This type of plagiarism uses previous article’s citations without actually reading or cross referencing the bibliography.

2.5.      Mosaic/patch writing

This happens when a new author uses the previous article text by replacing, reordering or rephrasing the words or sentences to give it new look without acknowledging the original author. It is also referred to as patch writing, in which the original structure of the sentence remains the same. This is a more common form of plagiarism. The sentence or paragraph structure is almost similar to the original source with a few words and phrases here and there. When the original author is not acknowledged and the reference not cited properly, such interlacing amounts to plagiarism.

2.6.      Self-Plagiarism

When everyone talks about stealing from other's work and ideas, it becomes difficult to believe that one can steal from himself/herself. Self-plagiarism happens when the author has added research on a previously published article, book, contributed chapter, journal, and presents it as a new without acknowledging the first article or taking permission from the previous publisher. Therefore, a copyright law has much importance and it and the Copyright law (the legal perspective) prevents the re-use of any “original work of authorship from any tangible medium of expression” (one's own or anyone else's) without the explicit permission of the copyright holder. Submission of the same article to multiple journals to increase the chances of publication or making multiple articles from a single article, known as, “salami slicing” is another form of plagiarism.

2.7.   Ghost writing

In this type the main contributor is not given due acknowledgement or someone who has not contributed is given due credit.

2.8.   Collusional

In this type the author asks a professional agent or institution to write an article and then claims as its own.

3.       Reasons for plagiarism

There are many reasons for plagiarism. An inherent desire or urge to be successful, cultural, psychological, aggressive nature towards success, fear of discrimination or failure, promotion, financial or job gains, peer pressure and need to increase one’s record number of publications are some of the individual causes for plagiarism. Lack of education at the undergraduate level regarding plagiarism is other reason for this trend. The demand of publication during interviews are also another cause for plagiarism. To get university or research grants, incentives from pharmaceutical companies, increase the academic and social performance of the department, gain access to international research, aim of publishing in indexed journals, unwillingness to work because of laziness among students while writing dissertation are other causes at institutional level. Shortage of time, inadequate preparation, poor English or writing skills and the pressure to publish more articles than to consider the quality, in shorter time are other causes for plagiarism.

4.       Detection of Plagiarism

Previously the only method to detect plagiarism was the ability/experience of the editor or reviewer to detect copies from the original. This involved extensive study of the literature, experience of the patterns of writing styles of different authors and cross checking them. In todays world there are many software and websites that help in detecting plagiarism .

Egs: Cross Check™, WCopyFind™, SafeAssign™, eTBLAST,

Viper (http://www.scanmyessay.com/plagiarism - free software)

5.       Principles to avoid plagiarism

The copyright laws were formed by the court of law to protect the privacy and integrity of someone's personal and intellectual property. Such laws, not only protected the published, written form of work, but also, media, photography, music, films and all other possible sources of information.

To avoid plagiarism, following things should be taken care.

Acknowledging online sources: If we take information from the internet or the writing is inspired by internet sources, then such sources should be acknowledged.

Use of quotation marks & references: Correct and proper use of references is very crucial in avoiding plagiarism. If the paper, article or study includes words or statements used by another person in his/her own study, then such statements should be properly quoted with the use of quotation marks and the paper should provide correct references too.

No paraphrasing: A writer must refrain him/herself from paraphrasing other people's work and is prohibited in claiming such work as a piece of his/her original product.

Acknowledgment: Correct and proper citation is mandatory to avoid plagiarism and give rightful credits to its original owner. If a person fails to cite his work properly, then it is considered plagiarism and the person is punishable according to the laws of that particular institution/state/government.

 

Reference

1.       Randhawa RK, Gupta N, Arora V, Nishant, Gupta P, 2015. Plagiarism: An Academic Dishonesty! J Updates Dent; 4(1):19-23.

2.       Yam Bahadur Roka, 2017. Plagiarism: Types, Causes and How to Avoid This Worldwide Problem, Nepal Journal of Neuroscience, 14 (3): 2-6.