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Article: Text-Based Plagiarism in Scientific Publishing: Issues, Developments and Education

TitleText-Based Plagiarism in Scientific Publishing: Issues, Developments and Education
Authors
KeywordsAutomated text-matching
English as an additional language (EAL) authors
Novice scientists
Text-based plagiarism
Issue Date2013
PublisherOpragen Publications. The Journal's web site is located at http://www.opragen.co.uk/
Citation
Science And Engineering Ethics, 2013, v. 19 n. 3, p. 1241-1254 How to Cite?
AbstractText-based plagiarism, or copying language from sources, has recently become an issue of growing concern in scientific publishing. Use of CrossCheck (a computational text-matching tool) by journals has sometimes exposed an unexpected amount of textual similarity between submissions and databases of scholarly literature. In this paper I provide an overview of the relevant literature, to examine how journal gatekeepers perceive textual appropriation, and how automated plagiarism-screening tools have been developed to detect text matching, with the technique now available for self-check of manuscripts before submission; I also discuss issues around English as an additional language (EAL) authors and in particular EAL novices being the typical offenders of textual borrowing. The final section of the paper proposes a few educational directions to take in tackling text-based plagiarism, highlighting the roles of the publishing industry, senior authors and English for academic purposes professionals. © 2012 The Author(s).
Persistent Identifierhttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/147114
ISSN
2023 Impact Factor: 2.7
2023 SCImago Journal Rankings: 1.194
ISI Accession Number ID
References

Abasi, A. R., & Akbari, N. (2008). Are we encouraging patchwriting? Reconsidering the role of the pedagogical context in ESL student writers’ transgressive intertextuality. English for Specific Purposes, 27(3), 267–284. doi: 10.1016/j.esp.2008.02.001

Afifi, M. (2007). Plagiarism is not fair play. The Lancet, 369, 1428. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(07)60662-X

Blakeslee, A. M. (1997). Activity, context, interaction, and authority: Learning to write scientific papers in situ. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 11(2), 125–169. doi: 10.1177/1050651997011002001

Bouville, M. (2008). Plagiarism: Words and Ideas. Science and Engineering Ethics, 14, 311–322. doi: doi: 10.1007/s11948-008-9057-6

Brumfiel, G. (2007). Turkish physicists face accusations of plagiarism. Nature, 449, 8. doi: 10.1038/449008b

Butler, D. (2008). Entire-paper plagiarism caught by software. Nature, 455, 715. doi: 10.1038/455715a

Butler, D. (2010). Journals step up plagiarism policing. Nature, 466, 167. doi: 10.1038/466167a

Cargill, M., O’Connor, P., & Li, Y. (2012). Educating Chinese scientists to write for international journals: Addressing the divide between science and technology education and English language teaching. English for Specific Purposes, 31, 60–69. doi: 10.1016/j.esp.2011.05.003

Chandrasoma, R., Thompson, C., & Pennycook, A. (2004). Beyond plagiarism: Transgressive and nontransgressive intertextuality. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 3, 171–193. doi: 10.1207/s15327701jlie0303_1

Collberg, C., & Kobourov, S. (2005). Self-plagiarism in computer science. Communications of the ACM, 48(4), 88–94. doi: 10.1145/1053291.1053293

Dubois, B. L. (1988). Citation in biomedical journal articles. English for Specific Purposes, 7, 181–193. doi: 10.1016/0889-4906(88)90015-4

Eckel, E. J. (2010). Textual appropriation in engineering Master’s theses: A preliminary study. Science and Engineering Ethics. doi:10.1007/s11948-010-9214-6.

Errami, M., & Garner, H. (2008). A tale of two citations. Nature, 451, 397–399. doi: 10.1038/451397a

Flowerdew, J., & Li, Y. (2007). Plagiarism and second language writing in an electronic age. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 27, 161–183. doi: 10.1017/S0267190508070086

Giles, J. (2006). Preprint analysis quantifies scientific plagiarism. Nature, 444, 524–525. doi: 10.1038/444524b

Hamp-Lyons, L. (2011). English for academic purposes: 2011 and beyond. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 10, 2–4. doi: 10.1016/j.jeap.2011.01.001

Howard, R. M. (1995). Plagiarisms, authorships, and the academic death penalty. College English, 57(7), 788–806. doi: 10.2307/378403

Lee, D., & Swales, J. (2006). A corpus-based EAP course for NNS doctoral students: Moving from available specialized corpora to self-compiled corpora. English for Specific Purposes, 25, 56–75. doi: 10.1016/j.esp.2005.02.010

Li, Y. (2006). A doctoral student of physics writing for international publication: A sociopolitically-oriented case study. English for Specific Purposes, 25, 456–478. doi: 10.1016/j.esp.2005.12.002

Li, Y. (2012a). Text-based plagiarism in scientific writing: What Chinese supervisors think about copying and how to reduce it in students’ writing. Science and Engineering Ethics. doi:10.1007/s11948-011-9342-7.

Li, X., & Xiong, L. (1996). Chinese researchers debate rash of plagiarism cases. Science, 274, 337–338. doi: 10.1126/science.274.5286.337

Long, T. C., Errami, M., George, A. C., Sun, Z., & Garner, H. R. (2009). Responding to possible plagiarism. Science, 323, 1293–1294. doi: 10.1126/science.1167408

Mišak, A., Marušić, M., & Marušić, A. (2005). Manuscript editing as a way of teaching academic writing: Experience from a small scientific journal. Journal of Second Language Writing, 14, 122–131. doi: 10.1016/j.jslw.2005.05.001

Pecorari, D. (2003). Good and original: Plagiarism and patchwriting in academic second-language writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 12, 317–345. doi: 10.1016/j.jslw.2003.08.004

Qiu, J. (2010). Publish or perish in China. Nature, 463, 142–143. doi: 10.1038/463142a

Simpson-Vlach, R., & Ellis, N. C. (2010). An academic formulas list: New methods in phraseology research. Applied Linguistics, 31(4), 487–512. doi: 10.1093/applin/amp058

Vessal, K., & Habibzadeh, F. (2007). Rules of the game of scientific writing: Fair play and plagiarism. The Lancet, 369, 641. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(07)60307-9

Williams, D. (2007). Plagiarism and redundancy [Editorial]. Biomaterials, 28, 2535. doi: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2007.02.025

Yilmaz, I. (2007). Plagiarism? No, we’re just borrowing better English. Nature, 449, 658. doi: 10.1038/449658a

Zhang, Y. (2010b). CrossCheck: An effective tool for detecting plagiarism. Learned Publishing, 23(1), 9–14. doi: 10.1087/20100103

 

DC FieldValueLanguage
dc.contributor.authorLi, Yen_HK
dc.date.accessioned2012-05-28T08:18:02Z-
dc.date.available2012-05-28T08:18:02Z-
dc.date.issued2013en_HK
dc.identifier.citationScience And Engineering Ethics, 2013, v. 19 n. 3, p. 1241-1254en_HK
dc.identifier.issn1353-3452en_HK
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/147114-
dc.description.abstractText-based plagiarism, or copying language from sources, has recently become an issue of growing concern in scientific publishing. Use of CrossCheck (a computational text-matching tool) by journals has sometimes exposed an unexpected amount of textual similarity between submissions and databases of scholarly literature. In this paper I provide an overview of the relevant literature, to examine how journal gatekeepers perceive textual appropriation, and how automated plagiarism-screening tools have been developed to detect text matching, with the technique now available for self-check of manuscripts before submission; I also discuss issues around English as an additional language (EAL) authors and in particular EAL novices being the typical offenders of textual borrowing. The final section of the paper proposes a few educational directions to take in tackling text-based plagiarism, highlighting the roles of the publishing industry, senior authors and English for academic purposes professionals. © 2012 The Author(s).en_HK
dc.languageengen_US
dc.publisherOpragen Publications. The Journal's web site is located at http://www.opragen.co.uk/en_HK
dc.relation.ispartofScience and Engineering Ethicsen_HK
dc.rightsThe Author(s)en_US
dc.rightsThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.en_US
dc.subjectAutomated text-matchingen_HK
dc.subjectEnglish as an additional language (EAL) authorsen_HK
dc.subjectNovice scientistsen_HK
dc.subjectText-based plagiarismen_HK
dc.titleText-Based Plagiarism in Scientific Publishing: Issues, Developments and Educationen_HK
dc.typeArticleen_HK
dc.identifier.openurlhttp://www.springerlink.com/link-out/?id=2104&code=V8705761247124W4&MUD=MPen_US
dc.identifier.emailLi, Y: yongyan@hku.hken_HK
dc.identifier.authorityLi, Y=rp00927en_HK
dc.description.naturepublished_or_final_versionen_US
dc.identifier.doi10.1007/s11948-012-9367-6en_HK
dc.identifier.pmid22535578-
dc.identifier.scopuseid_2-s2.0-84883771388en_HK
dc.identifier.hkuros205511-
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dc.identifier.spage1241en_HK
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dc.identifier.eissn1471-5546en_US
dc.identifier.isiWOS:000323106500034-
dc.publisher.placeUnited Kingdomen_HK
dc.description.otherSpringer Open Choice, 28 May 2012en_US
dc.identifier.scopusauthoridLi, Y=12238864000en_HK
dc.identifier.citeulike10628580-
dc.identifier.issnl1353-3452-

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