Related documents
Research Integrity Policy, Research Data management Policy and Authorship and Publication of Results, Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines, Plagiarism Policy.
Section 1. What is plagiarism?
Plagiarism is the act of using someone else’s words, ideas, or work without proper acknowledgment or permission and presenting them as one’s own.
There are several forms of plagiarism, and it’s essential to be aware of them to avoid unintentional violations. The common forms of plagiarism include:
- Direct (or Copy-Paste) plagiarism: This involves directly taking verbatim text from a source without proper referencing style. It is noteworthy that it can be difficult to determine if the author should quote or paraphrase, we recommend going with the second option as it is highly regarded, reflects a serious work from the authors side unless the paraphrasing is going to make the paragraph unnecessary long. (more detail avail be in this link)
- Plagiarism of ideas: It occurs when the author uses the ideas or thoughts as original without adequate credit to the original researchers results.
- Self-plagiarism/text-recycling: This occurs when a researcher represents their previous concepts as fresh and innovative. The author incorporates their own earlier contributions without acknowledging them. Some exception might exist, particularly in the case of publishing thesis related work. However, it must be in accordance with the editors and integrity standards, for more detail please visit this web site.
- Mosaic plagiarism or patchwork plagiarism: This occurs when an author combines copied material from various sources and presents it as his/her own without proper citation.
- Paraphrasing plagiarism: if the author rewrites someone else’s work in his/her own words, if he/she closely mimics the original structure and content without proper attribution, it is still considered plagiarism.
- Salami slicing (salami publication): This type of misconduct affects both research integrity and plagiarism. Plagiarism occurs when previously published text, data, or results are reused and presented as new. On the integrity front, it involves dividing a single study that could be presented in one paper into multiple repetitive articles. If the study has the same hypothesis, methods, and theoretical framework, it is considered unacceptable behavior. The practice of salami slicing can create the illusion of abundant literature and proof to support an argument. (for more information, please take a look at COPE’s Guidelines and Elsevier clarifications)
- Unconscious plagiarism: In some cases, researchers might be in an appropriation of others’ ideas, theories, and concepts unwillingly. This can be due to the lack of a deep literature review, a limit in the identification of the research gap or lack of appropriate referencing according to academic standards.
For researchers willing to get more in-depth in the definition and typology of plagiarism please check these extra sources. Georgetown University and the website of the Council of Writing Program Administrators.
Section 2: The citations in academic papers
To avoid plagiarism, it is necessary to cite and reference all sources of data and information. However, these citations must adhere to academic standards and journal’s editorial policies. The purpose of this section is to present some essential components of referencing.
- The citations must respect the referencing conventions recognized as such, for example, Harvard, APA, Chicago, IEEE, MLA, MRHA, OSCOLA or Vancouver.
- When publishing in a paper the author must use the referencing convention imposed by the journal or editor. Prior to submitting, the research must be aware to all the details of the Editorial Policies of the journals that include instructions on proper referencing to avoid unintentional plagiarism.
- The researcher must cite any idea that is not theirs, the citations must be accurate and used in the right context. Researchers should avoid citing derivations of the work and preferably cite the original source.
- Self-plagiarism must be avoided; however, the researchers should avoid excessive self-citations except when it is necessary and required. Self-citations must have a scholar justification.
- Software is available to help researchers detect plagiarism in their work or reference their sources according to academic standards as required by journals (E.G. iThenticate and Zotero).
To get a representative look at a journal’s Editorial guideline, the following link leads to the editorial guidelines of Springer.
Section 3: Sources on avoiding plagiarism.
This part is devoted to discovering the best practices and habits that help researchers avoid falling into plagiarism in their research and academic work. To use other researchers’ ideas, it is necessary to first cite their work and ensure an understanding of the original source. Then, present the concept in a new way, using the author’s words as a base and with proper citation.
- To avoid plagiarism, it is key to have a fair usage of others work. The author must cite the source of the idea and data. Then use proper paraphrasing by representing the ideas of others with their own words. Finaly, he must uphold the standards of academic integrity by avoiding excessive or unnecessary copy-pasting.
- While paraphrasing others work, it is crucial to keep the same meaning and use the idea and/ reasoning in the same context. The author’s work must reflect the arguments of the borrowed text presented in a new way.
- In his notes/draft the researchers must quote every idea that is not their own. Moreover, citations must be treated with utmost care, and highlight the importance of the phase of rendering the correct citations at the end of the paper.
- When it comes to data collection the researcher must be careful and fair in the note taking. A good practice is to clearly distinguish in the notes the author’s own ideas and words from others.
- Unintentional plagiarism counts as plagiarism and can lead to the same consequences. To avoid this situation the researcher must be scrupulous in his referencing. Missing a reference is a minor issue and framing it as a research misconduct would be excessive. However, the researcher must take extra care to the heavily used references.
To further the understanding of best practices, many sources can help researchers adopt the best research practices to avoid plagiarism:
Section 4: Large Language Models (LLMs) and other AI models and plagiarism.
AI technologies offer valuable support in academic research. However, the copying and the unfair use of AI can be qualified as misconduct. For proper use, the author shall include the name of the AI software, the version, list of research activities and the results according to the different academic referencing styles. (For more information: AI use Guidelines and Authorship and Publication of Results Policy).