Plagiarism in scientific articles: crime and punishment

Plagiarism

The greatly increased number of publications of scientific articles has sharply put the issue of plagiarism on the agenda. This applies not only to scientific articles, but also to monographs and dissertations. There were even communities of scientists who are not indifferent to this phenomenon, with a desire to eradicate this practice from science.

Plagiarism is understood as borrowing someone else’s text without reference to it. In student slang, this is often referred to as “picking out the text.” Removing quotes from the quoted text means that you are taking credit for it. Given the prevalence of this phenomenon, many programs have appeared on the Internet under the general name “Anti-plagiarism”. Any text posted on the network can be instantly checked for the presence of so-called unauthorized borrowings. It is more difficult to identify plagiarism of various images from photographs to paintings, music and other art objects.

When submitting an article to the journal, the author must know that it will be checked and accepted for consideration if its uniqueness is not lower than the requirements established by the journal. Different publications use different programs “Anti-plagiarism”. Which one should be specified in the editorial office, if it is not specified in the requirements for the design of articles submitted to the journal. As a rule, the required uniqueness is in the range from 85% to 90%. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that the text quoted by the author, if there is a link, does not affect the indicator of its uniqueness.

Unsuccessful quoting

Unsuccessful citation in most cases includes errors in references and references at the end of the article. In connection with the transition to bibliometric indicators in assessing the work of scientists and teachers, citation in scientific papers is treated quite strictly. We can only advise you to carefully read the requirements of GOST R 7.0.5-2008 when preparing a scientific article.

Semantic errors can also be attributed to this, when the given quote is out of place or there is an error in the source of the quote. In order to avoid such misunderstandings, it is necessary to carefully proofread the text before sending it to the editor or for review. The publication in the VAK journal undergoes mandatory proofreading, but sometimes annoying mistakes happen, and the responsibility for them falls on the author.

Self-plagiarism

Self-plagiarism occurs in the case of the pursuit of the volume and number of publications, when the author is replicating previously published works under a different title, without referring to them. Thus, the author increases the number of published works.

What is self-plagiarism? We need to define concepts. Let’s start with the fact that self-plagiarism is an ethical problem, not a legal one. Unlike plagiarism, in this case there is no appropriation of someone else’s authorship, which means that there is no appropriation of someone else’s property. The author cannot inflict property damage on himself, and, consequently, there is no violation of property rights. After all, the essence of plagiarism by and large lies in the appropriation of someone else’s idea, and not in copying the text.

Self-copying of text damages the reputation of the journal, but this is not prohibited by law. Therefore, the publication agreements with the author provide for a clause that prohibits the author of a scientific article from publishing it in another journal. But this does not prevent the author from publishing the article by slightly changing the title and stating the same text in other words. If, nevertheless, the author cites fragments from his own article published earlier in the text, then he must arrange it according to all the citation rules.

How to avoid plagiarism

Taking into account the constant improvement of anti-plagiarism systems, young authors face the question of how to avoid plagiarism. Moreover, the international publication of articles in all serious journals provides for mandatory peer review, which, coupled with anti-plagiarism, puts a serious barrier to copying other people’s texts and borrowing other people’s ideas. And not only in our country, but also abroad. To avoid accusations of plagiarism, you need to write the text in your own words, and at the end give a link to the source. If you yourself write an article or essay, then the chances of verbatim reproduction of the text are very small, but if you deliberately copy the text, then they are more than high.

If you do need to copy text, you don’t need to rewrite the entire page. It is enough to state most of the text in your own words, and arrange the rest at the end as a quote in accordance with all the rules, making a mandatory footnote to it and placing a link to the source in the bibliography.

There is another way to borrow other people’s thoughts if there is a shortage of your own. We are talking about the use of automated translation. First you translate the text into any foreign language, then you translate it into another language, and then into Russian. The resulting product must be edited, although this work in itself will also not be easy, and pass through the “Antiplagiarism”. With a high probability, it will show a high percentage of text uniqueness. But this can only work if there is no normal peer review.

Sanctions for plagiarism

There is legal responsibility for borrowing someone else’s text with attribution of its authorship to yourself. Proving plagiarism in court is quite difficult, and in practice this procedure almost does not apply to scientific texts. Here the main role is played by moral responsibility, which has a significant impact on the reputation of a scientist. Moreover, with the spread of the Internet, reputational costs can be very sensitive.

Practical sanctions are expressed, for example, in the journal’s refusal to accept an article for publication or even withdraw it from an already published issue if plagiarism is detected. The fight against plagiarism is in the interests of the journal, since it can affect its rating. Each journal itself determines the acceptable indicators of the uniqueness of published articles and strictly adheres to it. This is especially true of publications from foreign leading citation databases.

You can avoid all these difficulties by concluding an agreement with the publishing house “Ru-Science” for the publication of an article in Scopus at an affordable price. You can find more detailed information on the publisher’s website: https://ru-science.com/ru or get detailed advice by phone: +7(495) 669-5290.