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The Scientist: NewsBlog:
Plagiarism detection 2.0
Posted by Bob Grant [Entry posted at 12th May 2008 05:57 PM GMT]
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Return to Top comment: Plagiarism definition by anonymous poster [Comment posted 2008-05-14 20:50:56] All dictionary definitions of Plagiarism I found specify that it is dupicating *some one else's* words or art without permission. Thus, by definition, one cannot self-plagiarize.
Selling the same item as an "orginal" more than once is a different kind of fraud.... Baxter Zappa Return to Top comment: More problems than benefits by Inna Sokolova [Comment posted 2008-05-14 10:45:39] While I completely agree that publishing the same data twice is bad (and irritates me whenever I come across such semi-identical articles), it does not sound from the software description that it will efficiently prevent this. I suspect that it will be mostly finding repetitive descriptions of the experimental procedures and such in Materials and Methods sections that move unchanged from one article to another (and rightly so - why invent a new description of the same method if the authors, reviewers and editors had agreed that the previous one is clear and well written) and occasional paragraphs from the intro that explain why the study topic is important and the model is appropriate (there are only so many ways to say the same thing). Unless the software has a capability of filtering out such occurrences, the signal-to-noise ratio for its plagiarism detection will be very low and it will place a huge (unnecessary) burden on the editors to manually screen all the alleged plagiarisms, 90% of which will likely turn out to be the normal practice of describing the same procedure in the same words within the limitations of the technical language. Even Tolstoy and Hemingway tended to use the same phrases, words and constructions in their writing which is the basis of how linguists can ascribe authorship to questionable texts; is that also plagiarism?
And by the way, I think if the authors who have no ethical scruples about publishing their data twice want to do it, they still will be able to - all they will need is to be more creative in their writing and move the words around. Return to Top comment: A Good Idea....but limits are not defined by mukesh varshney [Comment posted 2008-05-14 03:12:39] It is really a positive effort to stop plagiarism.
what are the limitations? sometimes we do same techniques for different hypotheses. In that case the description of the technique is same which the author has published earlier. How many ways one has to edit the description for the same protocol or technique. Would it be plagiarism if one describes the text from earlier of his publications for the same technique or method. This problem needs to be defined very clearly. Return to Top comment: What are the limits? by Pascale Lane [Comment posted 2008-05-13 14:37:19] In general this is a good idea, but the idea of plagiarizing from myself is a bit absurd. After all, I publish multiple studies, all using the same model. How many ways can I describe that model? In every paper, there are 1 or 2 paragraphs that are virtually identical because the process is identical. If this tool flags items such as this, it will be more of a pain than an aid! Return to Top comment: Is quoting yourself plagiarism? by anonymous poster [Comment posted 2008-05-13 13:08:57] I would have thought that quoting yourself without attribution was not plagiarism even though it may be undesirable duplication. After all, can you steal from yourself? But it appears from other posts that this opinion is not universal.
So, can I cut and paste from myself without being accused of theft and at what point is duplication a crime? Return to Top comment: When are patent office submissions going to be added? by Ellen Hunt [Comment posted 2008-05-13 12:47:46] There is a special plagiarism that bright students, (and maybe others) particularly in bioengineering and such, commit with impunity. They search through patent office filings, (generally prior to issue of patent) to find something to use for a thesis. Then they duplicate it using the directions in the filing.
Searching for this needs to be made part of plagiarism automated systems. Return to Top comment: A ridiculous idea when considered against the consequences. by anonymous poster [Comment posted 2008-05-13 12:29:19] What a ridiculous idea! Are we dealing with college students? Who will pay the extra time for the editors and reviewers needed? Are we going to add another assurance at the end of every article: "The authors assure that we have not committed any plagiarism and never used more than 10 words (insert #) from any other article, without reference given".
And what are we going to do with the sinners? And who is going to be the judge? And where is the court system that will handle the transgressions so that normal legal rules of defending, appeal, independent judge etc are fulfilled? In short where is common sense? Return to Top comment: A very positive step by ROBERT HURST [Comment posted 2008-05-13 12:11:48] I don't know how prevalent the practice is, but I know of two papers published by a multi-investigator consortium that have almost identical abstracts and similar titles. I suspect the motivation was to increase the first and last authorships of members of the consortium. While I do understand the motivation, the papers were so similar as to bring into question whether one paper plagiarized the other. In addition I know it is common practice for research groups to slice and dice their results and publish several papers that are very similar to each other just to increase their apparent productivity, or so it seems. This kind of checking should reduce these practices considerably. The net result is to clog the literature with duplication. Comment on this blog |