While writing your research paper, you might often refer to existing work published by other researchers in your field. However, it is extremely important to acknowledge all such sources clearly and completely. Attempting to use the ideas, words, or work of another person, without giving them due credit, is considered extremely unethical and is termed plagiarism. This slide deck briefly explains 4 common types of plagiarism in academic publishing, how journals detect plagiarism in research papers, and the consequences of plagiarism.

1. TYPES OF
PLAGIARISM
IN ACADEMIC
PUBLISHING

2. 1.
WHAT IS
PLAGIARISM?

3. PICTURE THIS SCENARIO:
Halfway into your research project, you
find that another group of researchers –
Jones et. al. – has elegantly described the
stages through which a disease advances.
3
You feel that you cannot possibly
describe the stages better than
Jones et. al. and decide to use it
word-for-word in your paper.

4. 4
But can you do this?
Is it acceptable to use Jones et. al.’s work as is?
ABSOLUTELY NOT!
Attempting to use the ideas,
words, or work done earlier
by someone else, without
giving them due credit, is
known as “plagiarism.”
And plagiarism is considered
extremely unethical.

5. 5
SO DOES THIS MEAN YOU CAN NEVER CITE
THE WORK OF OTHER RESEARCHERS?
You can cite another researcher’s work, as long
as you do so ethically and give them due credit.
HOW CAN YOU ETHICALLY CITE ANOTHER
RESEARCHER’S WORK?
By clearly and completely acknowledging all the
sources you have referred to while conducting
your research or writing your paper.

6. 2.
WHAT ARE
THE TYPES OF
PLAGIARISM?

7. HERE ARE 4 COMMON TYPES
OF PLAGIARISM:
7
▸ Deliberate plagiarism
▸ Accidental or unwitting plagiarism
▸ Self-plagiarism
▸ Mosaic plagiarism

8. 8
DELIBERATE PLAGIARISM
OCCURS WHEN:
▸ You don’t give due credit to
previously published work in
your field and instead present
this previous work as your own
ideas.
▸ You don’t credit the techniques
you have used to conduct your
research to the people who
originally developed them.
▸ You pass off the opinions and
ideas of others as your own.

9. 9
WHY DO RESEARCHERS DELIBERATELY
PLAGIARIZE WORK?
Time constraints or poor time management
could push a researcher to plagiarize large
chunks of material from other authors

10. 10
ACCIDENTAL OR UNWITTING PLAGIARISM
OCCURS WHEN:
▸ You don’t think that it is necessary to acknowledge the
original author of a well-known fact, considering it as
“common scientific knowledge” (e.g., global warming is
causing climate change).
▸ You make a careless oversight or error while writing
down references. For instance, you may have
forgotten to cite a source or incorrectly cited it.
▸ There is a cultural difference; for instance, junior
researchers from certain cultures may feel that it is
disrespectful to alter the words used by a senior
researcher who is an authority in the field.

11. 11
ACCIDENTAL OR
UNWITTING PLAGIARISM
OCCURS WHEN:
▸ There are language problems;
for instance, if English is not
your first language, you may
not be confident of your ability
to paraphrase another
researcher’s work while
retaining the original meaning.
▸ The original article is a highly
technical description, and you
feel incapable of paraphrasing
it in your own words. This is
especially true for students or
inexperienced researchers.

12. SELF-PLAGIARISM OCCURS WHEN:
12
▸ You republish one of your existing articles
either in its entirety or reuse portions of a
previously written text while authoring new
work.
▸ You combine your previously published papers
to create one larger article or even a book
without acknowledging the previous articles.

13. 13
WHY CAN’T YOU USE
TEXT FROM YOUR OWN
PUBLISHED WORK?
Although you can quote text from
your previous publications with
relevant citations, a duplicate
publication of previously reported
data is very unethical.
If you engage in self-plagiarism,
your new paper could be deemed
as a redundant publication. This
could lead to copyright infringement.

14. 14
MOSAIC PLAGIARISM OCCURS WHEN:
▸ You directly use words or phrases from the
source document without enclosing the
extracted text in quotes or setting it apart as a
block quotation.
▸ You attempt to replace words from the source
document with synonyms without changing
either the overall structure or the meaning of the
original version.

15. 3.
HOW DO
JOURNALS DETECT
PLAGIARISM?

16. 16
A reviewer or journal editor easily detects
plagiarism if they find that a submitted
manuscript contains:
Large passages
quoted verbatim from
the source document
Large amounts of text
from the source
document with very
little modification
“

17. What leads reviewers to think
that authors have plagiarized
previously published work?
Reviewers get suspicious if:
▸ the author’s writing style varies considerably
between passages in the submitted manuscript
▸ the level of English used is very different in different
parts of the manuscript
▸ the reviewer is familiar with the work that has been
plagiarized
17

18. 4.
WHAT ARE THE
CONSEQUENCES
OF PLAGIARISM?

19. 19
IF YOUR ARE FOUND PLAGIARIZING
OTHER WORK:
▸ you could lose tenure/funding
▸ you could lose credibility in the academic
community for the entire body of your work.
REMEMBER:
Don’t take plagiarism lightly. If a journal detects
any plagiarism in your paper, regardless of your
intent, you won’t be absolved.

20. 20
REFERENCES
▸ Plagiarism in academic publishing
https://www.editage.com/insights/plagiarism-in-academic-
publishing
▸ What’s the big deal about self-plagiarism?
https://www.editage.com/insights/whats-the-big-deal-about-self-
plagiarism
▸ The common types of plagiarism
https://www.bowdoin.edu/studentaffairs/academic-
honesty/common-types.shtml
▸ RoigM (2006). Avoiding plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and other
questionable writing practices: A guide to ethical writing
https://ori.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/plagiarism.pdf

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