What is Plagiarism and How to Avoid Plagiarism in Your Manuscript?
What Is Plagiarism?
Plagiarism arises when someone copies someone else’s idea, piece of writing, or work and pastes it into another work without providing full credit to the original author. Duplication of text or findings from other papers or books, whether from the work of other academics or the author’s own work, is absolutely unethical (known as self-plagiarism). This covers everything whether deliberately or accidentally, published or unpublished, online or offline.
How Do Publishers Detect Plagiarism?
Plagiarism is crucial, and it endangers the scientific literature’s credibility. It is vital to detect improper copying in order to protect the scientific literature’s integrity. Previously, plagiarism detection was a time-consuming complicated process. editorial offices used to rely on accidental observation by reviewers or editors to determine whether or not a piece of work had been previously published. Nowadays, journals are using technologies and software tools that can effectively scan thousands of papers in seconds, matching submitted material to already published content. Most publishers use iThenticate to be able to detect plagiarism. iThenticate scans documents and compares them against its database which contains millions of published items from scholarly publishers.
Statistics
According to a study conducted by Higgins et al. (2016), 17% of submitted manuscripts had unacceptable amounts of plagiarized material. Of them, 82% are coming from countries where English was not the official language. Over half of the plagiarized manuscripts were “self-plagiarized,” which should also be avoided.
Zhang Y and Jia X performed a thorough survey among journal editors from both English-speaking and non-English-speaking countries to find out how they employed the plagiarism detection tool, iThenticate, for submissions received. 42% of the 219 respondents stated that they use iThenticate as part of their submission screening process. Below are some statistics on the approach the publishers follow to detect plagiarism and take a decision on the submitted manuscripts. An overall similarity index of 50% was found unacceptable by the editors on average, and a “reject” conclusion was recommended.
66%: Rely on the iThenticate report and editorial assessment/peer reviewers' comments
20%: Rely entirely on the report and reject manuscripts with a high similarity score
10%: Seek peer reviewers' advice on papers when plagiarism was suspected
4%: Contact the manuscript authors for an explanation
Sanctions
Plagiarism is considered a breach of academic integrity and publishing ethics. When the editorial office notices this type of misconduct, they may impose sanctions on the manuscript’s authors, such as:
The plagiarized manuscript will be rejected outright.
The authors will not be able to submit any more articles to the journal.
Some publishers contact the authors’ institutions to inform them of the situation.
Tips to Avoid Plagiarism
As the number of publishers employing plagiarism-detection software has grown, so has the number of cases in which manuscripts have been found plagiarized. In the journal publishing industry, this form of scientific misconduct at the research level has become a big concern. Although no defined set of standards exists at this time, publishers, research institutes, and other organizations have established policies and guidelines to assist authors:
Copying Is Not Sufficient
Rather than duplicating what you have read, discuss other people’s ideas or results (using references) and how they relate to your argument. Avoid the cut/copy and paste option as it motivates you to copy everything you have read verbatim.
Writing with Your Style
Establish a unique writing style and make your style succinct and clear. Do not use others’ same words as this will raise suspicions of plagiarism.
Discussing Ideas from a Variety of Sources
When it comes to academic writing, do not limit yourself to just one or two sources or a certain author, though discuss ideas from a variety of sources. This demonstrates that you have created your own opinions based on thorough research.
Citing the Resources
Always credit the original author even if the original author is you. Keep in mind that if you incorporate someone else’s ideas in your work, you must credit them with a citation. You must cite the source, even if you are using one of your own previously published works; otherwise, this will be considered self-plagiarism.
Making Use of Quote Marks When Necessary
If it is necessary to use a quote from another author verbatim, make sure to put the words in quotation marks to show that they are a direct quote. Direct quotations should be used rarely and should not have a lot of content in them.
Scanning Your Manuscript
Scanning your manuscript before submission using plagiarism detection software is useful. It will draw your attention to the parts that require rephrasing. Be careful also to the overall similarity and ensure that it does not exceed 25%.
If so, it is highly required to go through the parts of your manuscript that are identical or very similar to existing material and rewrite it in your own style.
Seeking Assistance from a Native English Speaker or a Language Editing Center
As per the findings by Higgins et al. (2016), 82% of the plagiarism cases are coming from countries where English was not the official language. For non-native/non-professional English speakers, it will be difficult to rephrase an English text in their own language. So, seeking assistance from a native English speaker or a language editing center is highly recommended. In fact, our language editing service, at Rasayely, may be helpful.
Conclusion
Not only academic journal editors or scholarly publishers are responsible for maintaining a strategy to avoid plagiarism and duplicate publications, but also researchers themselves, whether as authors or reviewers, they need to acknowledge their role in raising their own standards to eliminate plagiarism.
Further Readings and Resources
[1] Higgins JR, Lin F-C, Evans JP. Plagiarism in submitted manuscripts: incidence, characteristics and optimization of screening—case study in a major specialty medical journal. Research Integrity and Peer Review 2016;1:13. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41073-016-0021-8.
[2] Zhang Y (Helen), Jia X. A survey on the use of CrossCheck for detecting plagiarism in journal articles. Learned Publishing 2012;25:292–307. https://doi.org/10.1087/20120408.
[3] Plagiarism | University of Oxford n.d. https://www.ox.ac.uk/students/academic/guidance/skills/plagiarism (accessed March 10, 2022).
[4] Plagiarism detection by publishers. Imperial College London n.d. http://www.imperial.ac.uk/admin-services/library/research-support/plagiarism-awareness-for-researchers/plagiarism-detection-by-publishers/ (accessed March 10, 2022).
[5] English Editing｜Proofreading Academic Papers | Rasayely 2018. https://www.rasayely.com/english-editing-proofreading/ (accessed March 10, 2022).