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Self-Plagiarism or Appropriate Textual Re-use?

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Abstract

Self-plagiarism requires clear definition within an environment that places integrity at the heart of the research enterprise. This paper explores the whole notion of self-plagiarism by academics and distinguishes between appropriate and inappropriate textual re-use in academic publications, while considering research on other forms of plagiarism such as student plagiarism. Based on the practical experience of the authors in identifying academics’ self-plagiarism using both electronic detection and manual analysis, a simple model is proposed for identifying self-plagiarism by academics.

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Notes

  1. An extensive discussion on this topic can be found on the Discussion List of the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME 2007).

  2. These guidelines adhere to those provided by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE 2008) and also recommended by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE 2006).

  3. Turnitin is an electronic text-matching program used as a plagiarism detection tool. Electronic copies of text are submitted to the program’s ever-expanding database of electronic articles and students’ assignments. The program produces an ‘Overall Similarity Index’ with a percentage score and links to identified copied sources.

  4. See for example, Cheah and Bretag (2008).

  5. As our original research on academics’ self-plagiarism was based on a sample of published work by Australian authors, it was appropriate to refer to Australian Copyright Law for guidance. We recognise that Copyright Law in other countries does not necessarily provide such specific guidelines. In the United States, for example, the Copyright Act gives four non-exclusive factors to consider in a fair use analysis, including the need to take into account “the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole”. The Act does not however, provide specific guidance on how to interpret what a substantial amount might equal in percentage terms (Copyright Law of the United States 2008).

  6. The authors thank an anonymous reviewer for drawing our attention to this issue.

  7. Please refer to earlier comments regarding ongoing controversy in the United States about the use of Turnitin.

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Acknowledgements

We are indebted to our colleagues in the School of Management, Associate Professor Chris Provis and Dr Howard Harris, who have contributed greatly to our thinking about appropriate textual re-use through extensive discussion on this topic throughout 2008. We thank them for their insights. Thanks also to the anonymous reviewers for providing valuable feedback.

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Correspondence to Tracey Bretag.

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An earlier, oral version of this paper was originally presented at the 3rd International Plagiarism Conference, Northumbria University, UK, 21–23 June 2008.

Madmud, previously known as Carapiet.

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Bretag, T., Mahmud, S. Self-Plagiarism or Appropriate Textual Re-use?. J Acad Ethics 7, 193–205 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10805-009-9092-1

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