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Plagiarism and Self-plagiarism in the Sciences*

Plagiarism and Self-plagiarism in the Sciences*. Miguel Roig, Ph.D. Associate Professor Department of Psychology roigm@stjohns.edu. *Many of the ideas and some of the slides in this presentation have been shown elsewhere. Plagiarism.

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Plagiarism and Self-plagiarism in the Sciences*

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  1. Plagiarism and Self-plagiarism in the Sciences* Miguel Roig, Ph.D. Associate Professor Department of Psychologyroigm@stjohns.edu *Many of the ideas and some of the slides in this presentation have been shown elsewhere

  2. Plagiarism We recognize it when we see it . . . most of the time and, generally, when it is blatant

  3. Some Dictionary Definitions¹ • “The action of using or copying someone else’s idea or work and pretending that you thought of it or created it” (Collins). • “To take words, ideas, etc., from someone else’s work and use them in one’s own work without admitting one has done so”(Longman). • “To steal and pass off as one’s own the ideas or words of another” (Webster). ¹taken from Decoo, W. (2002). Crisis on campus: Confronting academic misconduct. The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA

  4. The Latest Comprehensive US Study From Donald McCabe, et al. • Internet plagiarism is on the rise. A 23-campus study published in 2002 revealed that 38% admitted to having plagiarized the previous year. • 25% of graduate students surveyed admitted to “cut-and-paste” plagiarism.

  5. Student Cheating and Plagiarism • The overall academic dishonesty literature indicates that between 40% to 60% of college students admit that they plagiarize and similar proportions admit to cheating on examinations. • There are other common academically dishonest student activities that are seldom investigated (e.g., use of fraudulent excuses).

  6. Student Cheating and Plagiarism • Plagiarism also occurs in professional schools: • Journalism school • Law school • Engineering school • Medical school

  7. Plagiarism in the sciences

  8. Cases of plagiarism investigated by US government • Office of Research Integrity (ORI). From 1992-2005 ORI reported a total of 159 cases of scientific misconduct, 19 (12%) of which involved plagiarism. • In a similar time period, the National Science Foundation (NSF) reported that 66% of their cases of scientific misconduct involved a finding of plagiarism. (the discrepancy between ORI and NSF cases involves differences in how each defines plagiarism)

  9. Cases of plagiarism in China • From 1999 to 2005, there were 542 cases investigated by the NSF of China. There were 60 cases found to be misconduct. • 34% of cases involved plagiarism. Yidong, G. (2005). China Science Foundation Takes Action Against 60 Grantees. Science, 309, 1798-1799.

  10. Gibelman, & Gelman (2003) Plagiarism by Faculty/Scholars in the News 2000-2003 University Individual Field______ Trinity International University (CA) Dean Winston F. Frost Law Monash University (Australia) Vice Chancellor Sociology David Robinson Kumaun University (India) Balwant Singh Rajput Physics University of Albany (NY) Louis Roberts Humanities Wesley College (DE) President Scott D. Miller Unknown TV Commentator; Scholar; Lecturer Doris Kearns Goodwin History University of New Orleans (LA) Stephen Ambrose History

  11. Gibelman, & Gelman (2003) Plagiarism by Faculty/Scholars in the News 2000-2003 University Individual Field___ Mount Holyoke (MA) Joseph J. Ellis History Hamilton College (NY) President Eugene Tobin Unknown Cornell University (NY) David A. Levitsky Nutrition Heald College (Various locations) Senior Vice President, Unknown Roger C. Anderson Liverpool Hospital, University Bruce Hall Immunol. of New South Wales (Australia) Peking University (China) Wang Mingming Anthrop.

  12. Gibelman, & Gelman (2003) Plagiarism by Faculty/Scholars in the News 2000-2003 University Individual Field___ Boston University (MA) John J. Schulz Commun. University of Pirarus (Greece) Prof. Assima Kopoulos Engin. University of Texas Health Center Momiao Xiong Health Sc. U.S. Naval Academy (MD) Brian VanDeMark History Florida Atlantic University Lindsey S. Hamlin Intern. William T. Ryan Business ____________________________________________________________________ Gibelman, M. & Gelman, S. R. (2003). Plagiarism in Academia: Trends and Implications. Accountability in Research: Policies & Quality Assurance, 10, 229-252.

  13. Martinson, et al.’s (2005) study A recent study by Martinson, et al., indicates that of 3,247 US scientists: • 1.4% use another’s ideas without obtaining permission or giving due credit. • 4.7 publish the same data or results in two or more publications. • 33% admit to some other form of ethically questionable misbehavior. Martinson, B. C., Anderson, M. S., & de Vries, R. (2005). Scientists behaving badly. Nature, 435, 737-738.

  14. Plagiarism is probably more common than the data seem to indicate There is every reason to believe that the existing literature significantly underestimates the extent of the problem. Why?

  15. Among the reasons are: • Limitations of survey research. • Some cases are kept “hidden”. • Many students and a significant number of professionals plagiarize in subtle ways and these cases are sometimes difficult to recognize. • Plagiarism has not been fully operationalized, it is poorly defined, and the available guidance is inconsistent.

  16. Limitations of survey research

  17. Much of the evidence for plagiarism is from survey research • Items tend to reflect the unique way in which concepts and categories are presented by the researchers • Social desirability of items or of respondents • Possibly biased samples (volunteers) • Reliance of memory of events/behaviors

  18. Some cases are kept “hidden”

  19. Many students and a significant number of professionals plagiarize in subtle ways and these cases are sometimes difficult to recognize

  20. Plagiarism Is More Common Than the Research Indicates • There are those who believe that as long as a citation is included, they can simply appropriate portions of text from another source and use that text as their own writing. • Julliard (1994) found that physicians, but not most medical students or English faculty hold the above view. Julliard, K. (1993). Perceptions of plagiarism in the use of other author's language. Family Medicine, 26, 356-360.

  21. Plagiarism Is More Common Than the Research Indicates • Others believe that, as long as you can change a word here or there in a sentence, the resulting writing constitutes an acceptable paraphrase and not plagiarism.

  22. Plagiarism and paraphrasing criteria of college professorsPlease complete the PKS

  23. Study Instructions Assume that you want to include the information from the Zenhausern paragraph in your paper and are considering the re-written versions shown below. Please examine each re-written paragraph carefully, compare it with the original version above, and circle the appropriate abbreviation to indicate whether, in your opinion, the re‑written version constitutes a case of plagiarism (P), not plagiarism, that is, the paragraph has been legitimately paraphrased (NP), or you simply cannot determine (CD) whether the re-written version has been plagiarized or not. In making your decision please assume that when the author and year of the original text (i.e., Zenhausern, 1978) is cited in the re-written version, or if a footnote appears in the re-written version, the cited work would also appear in the paper's reference section or bibliography.

  24. Percentage of college professors (first row; n = 138) and of psychology professors (second row; n = 53) who responded to the various paragraphs ___________________________________________________________________ Plagiarized Not Plagiarized Cannot Determine ___________________________________________________________________ Paragraph 1 92% (126) 7% (10) 1% (2) 96% (51) 3% (2) 0% (0) Paragraph 2 83% (114) 12% (17) 5% (7) 92% (49) 6% (3) 2% (1) Paragraph 3 81% (111) 13% (18) 6% (9) 81% (43) 9% (5) 9% (5) Paragraph 4 48% (66) 44% (60) 9% (12) 57% (30) 36% (19) 8% (4) *Paragraph 5 4% (5) 94% (129) 3% (4) 6% (3) 93% (49) 2% (1) *Paragraph 6 4% (5) 91% (126) 5% (7) 2% (1) 93% (49) 6% (3) ________________________________________________________From: Roig, M. (2001). Plagiarism and paraphrasing criteria of college and university professors Ethics and Behavior(11) 3, 307-323.

  25. Percentage of college professors (first row; n = 191) and students (second row; n = 231) who responded to the various paragraphs ___________________________________________________________________ Plagiarized Not Plagiarized Cannot Determine ___________________________________________________________________ Paragraph 1 93% (177) 6% (12) 1% (2) 73% (170) 18% (41) 9% (20) Paragraph 2 85% (163) 10% (20) 4% (8) 57% (131) 29% (67) 14% (33) Paragraph 3 81% (154) 12% (23) 7% (14) 62% (144) 21% (48) 17% (39) Paragraph 4 50% (96) 41% (79) 8% (16) 19% (43) 65% (150) 17% (38) *Paragraph 5 4% (8) 93% (178) 3% (5) 7% (17) 82% (189) 11% (25) *Paragraph 6 3% (6) 92% (175) 5% (10)14% (32) 62% (144) 24% (55) ________________________________________________________ Student data from: Roig, M. (1997). Can college undergraduate determine whether text has been plagiarized? The Psychological Record, 47, 113-122.

  26. What happens when college professors are asked to paraphrase these paragraphs?

  27. Paraphrasing Exercise Writing about mental imagery

  28. How would you paraphrase the following paragraph? ORIGINAL Since subjective and objective tests of imagery ability have not resulted in predicted performance differences, the only way to determine if a person thinks visually or nonvisually is to ask that question directly. ... One important finding is that many nonvisual thinkers have rather vivid imagery, but they can state with confidence that they do not think in pictures" (Zenhausern, 1978, p. 382). Zenhausern, R. (1978). Imagery, cerebral dominance, and style of thinking: Unified field model. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 12, 381‑384.

  29. ORIGINAL Since subjective and objective tests of imagery ability have not resulted in predicted performance differences, the only way to determine if a person thinks visually or nonvisually is to ask that question directly. ... One important finding is that many nonvisual thinkers have rather vivid imagery, but they can state with confidence that they do not think in pictures" (Zenhausern, 1978, p. 382). INAPPROPRIATELY PARAPHRASED VERSION Given that objective and subjective tests of imagery havenot produced predicted differences in performance, the only way to determine if a person thinks visually or nonvisually is to ask that question directly. An interesting finding is that some nonvisual thinkers have vivid imagery, but they can say with a lot of confidence that they do not think in pictures (Zenhausern, 1978). Appropriate and inappropriate paraphrasing

  30. ORIGINAL Since subjective and objective tests of imagery ability have not resulted in predicted performance differences, the only way to determine if a person thinks visually or nonvisually is to ask that question directly. ... One important finding is that many nonvisual thinkers have rather vivid imagery, but they can state with confidence that they do not think in pictures" (Zenhausern, 1978, p. 382). APPROPRIATELY PARAPHRASED VERSION    Zenhausern (1978) reports that various types of instruments designed to measure imagery have yielded inconsistent results. He suggests that the only technique that will tell us whether someone thinks visually or not is to ask the person directly. However, this author also notes that some individuals who admit that they do not think in pictures report having very “vivid imagery” (p. 382). Appropriate and inappropriate paraphrasing

  31. Paraphrasing Exercise Writing about astrology

  32. How would you paraphrase the following paragraph? ORIGINAL “If you have ever had your astrological chart done, you may have been impressed with its seeming accuracy. Careful reading shows many such charts to be made up of mostly flattering traits. Naturally, when your personality is described in desirable terms, it is hard to deny that the description has the ‘ring of truth’" (Coon, 1995, p. 29). Coon, B. (1995). Introduction to Psychology: Exploration and Application (7th ed.),New York: West.

  33. ORIGINAL “If you have ever had your astrological chart done, you may have been impressed with its seeming accuracy. Careful reading shows many such charts to be made up of mostly flattering traits. Naturally, when your personality is described in desirable terms, it is hard to deny that the description has the ‘ring of truth’" (Coon, 1995, p. 29). INAPPROPRIATELY PARAPHRASED VERSION According to Coon (1995), if you ever have had your astrological chart done, you were probably impressed by how accurate it seemed. A careful reading indicates many such charts to be made up of mainly flattering traits. Of course, it is hard to deny that the description has the ‘ring of truth’ when your personality is described in desirable terms. Appropriate and inappropriate paraphrasing

  34. ORIGINAL “If you have ever had your astrological chart done, you may have been impressed with its seeming accuracy. Careful reading shows many such charts to be made up of mostly flattering traits. Naturally, when your personality is described in desirable terms, it is hard to deny that the description has the ‘ring of truth’" (Coon, 1995, p. 29). APPROPRIATELY PARAPHRASED VERSION    According to Coon (1995), individuals who have had their astrological chart profiled may have been swayed by their apparent precision. If you study these charts, however, you realize that they are primarily composed of complimentary attributes. Obviously, as Coon notes, when one is described with positive, laudable traits, it is difficult to argue against such a flattering portrait of oneself. Appropriate and inappropriate paraphrasing

  35. Study Instructions Let's assume that you want to include the information from the Zenhausern paragraph in your paper but that you do not want to use a direct quote. Instead, you want to paraphrase the entire paragraph. How would you re‑write the above version of the paragraph so as to not be classified as a case of plagiarism? In the space below, please paraphrase the above paragraph to the best of your ability (use the back of the page if you need more space). Assume that a correct citation (e.g., a footnote, Zenhausern, 1978) will appear in your paper's reference section. Also, please write clearly and legibly.

  36. Text misappropriation by professors as function of paragraph readability College Professors Psychologists Difficult-to-read Difficult-to-read Easy-to-read (n = 109) (n = 43) (n = 64) ____________________________________________________________________ String Length 5-word strings 30% 26% 03% 6-word strings 22% 19% 03%7-word strings 18% 16% 00%8-word strings 09% 09% 00% _____________________________________________________________ *From: Roig, M. (2001). Plagiarism and paraphrasing criteria of college and university professors Ethics and Behavior(11) 3, 307-323.

  37. Text misappropriation as function of paragraph readability College Professors Psychologists Students Difficult-to-read Easy-to-read Difficult-to-read Easy-to-read (n = 109) (n = 64) (n = 215) (n = 206) ___________________________________________________________________________ String Length 5-word strings 30% 03% 68% 19% 6-word strings 22% 03% 62% 16% 7-word strings 18% 00% 53% 10% 8-word strings 09% 00% 41% 09% ___________________________________________________________________Student data from: *Roig, M. (1999). When college students' attempts at paraphrasing become instances of potential plagiarism. Psychological Reports, 84, 973-982.

  38. Plagiarism has not been fully operationalized and the available guidance is inconsistent.

  39. Paraphrasing according to the general writing guides

  40. General Writing Guides • “When paraphrasing, you restate an author’s ideas in your own words. A good paraphrase retains the organization, emphasis, and often many of the details of the original passage” Kennedy, X. J., Kennedy, D. M., Holladay, S. A. (2002). The Bedford Guide for College Writers, 6th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s Press.

  41. General Writing Guides • “Changing a word here and there and reversing the order of phrases is not sufficient, even though you give credit in a footnote” (Campbell & Ballou, 1990, p. 11). In explaining proper paraphrasing strategies these authors further warn: • “Do not substitute synonyms here and there or rearrange sentence elements” (Campbell & Ballou, p. 39). Campbell, W. G., & Ballou, S. V. (1990). Form and Style: Theses, Reports, Term Papers. (5th ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

  42. General Writing Guides • “You also plagiarize when you use words so close to those in your source, that if your work were placed next to the source, it would be obvious that you could not have written what you did without the source at your elbow.” (Booth, Colomb, & Williams, 1995; p. 167) Booth, W. C., Colomb, G. G., Williams, J. M. (1995). The craft of research. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

  43. Writing Guides in Biology Biology Writing Guide • “Express your own thoughts in your own words…. Note, too, that simply changing a few words here and there, or changing the order of a few words in a sentence or paragraph, is still plagiarism. Plagiarism is one of the most serious crimes in academia.” (Pechenik, 2001; p.10). Pechnick, J. A. (2001). A short guide to writing about biology, 4th Edition. New York: Addison Wesley Longman.

  44. Plagiarism and paraphrasing according to the professional writing guides • Most of the student and professional writing guides provide coverage for plagiarism. However, few of the professional guides cover the more subtle forms of plagiarism (e.g., inappropriate paraphrasing).

  45. The American Medical Association Manual of Style, 9th edition • Direct Plagiarism: Verbatim lifting of passages without enclosing the borrowed material in quotation marks and crediting the original author. • Mosaic: Borrowing ideas and opinions from an original source and a few verbatim words or phrases without crediting the original author. In this case the plagiarist intertwines his or her own ideas and opinions with those of the original author, creating a “confused plagiarized mass”

  46. The American Medical Association Manual of Style, 9th edition • Paraphrase: Restating a phrase or passage, providing the same meaning but in a different form without attribution to the original author. • Insufficient acknowledgement: Noting the original source of only part of what is borrowed or failing to cite the source material in such a way that a reader will know what is original and what is borrowed.

  47. The APA Manual • One guide that provides some coverage of ‘proper paraphrasing is the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (2001). • Unfortunately the coverage provided by the APA Manual is misleading …

  48. The APA Manual • From the APA Manual: • “Each time you paraphrase another author (i.e., summarize a passage or rearrange the order of a sentence and change some of the words), you will need to credit the source in the text.” • Please note that summarizing and paraphrasing are two distinct processes, though in both instances we must acknowledge the source of the material.

  49. Summarizing and Paraphrasing • When we summarize, we condense, in our own words, a substantial amount of material into a short paragraph or perhaps even into a sentence. • When we paraphrase, we have to reproduce the meaning of the other author’s ideas using our words and sentence structure

  50. US Office of Research Integrity (ORI)http://ori.dhhs.gov/policies/plagiarism.shtml • “As a general working definition, ORI considers plagiarism to include both the theft or misappropriation of intellectual property and the substantial unattributed textual copying of another's work. It does not include authorship or credit disputes.”“The theft or misappropriation of intellectual property includes the unauthorized use of ideas or unique methods obtained by a privileged communication, such as a grant or manuscript review.”

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