Five Simple Rules to Avoid Plagiarism

HOLLY OBER,1 SCOTT I. SIMON,1 and DANIEL ELSON2

1University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA; and 2Imperial College, London, UK

Plagiarism is a form of scientific misconduct definedas authoring ideas or words produced by someone elseor from one’s own previous publications andattempting to publish such work without properlyciting the original author and publication. Plagiarismis easy for writers to avoid by simply not copying anyprinted sources and by writing original text in one’sown words, and, if paraphrasing, citing the source.Unfortunately, these simple rules seem to be eitherforgotten or ignored by many authors, as instances ofplagiarism have become all too common throughoutthe scientific world.1 A charitable view is that authorswho are guilty of plagiarism are ignorant of whatconstitutes plagiarism. Science adheres to certainstandards of investigation that are invariant withrespect to geography, social convention or personalopinion. Because publishing and disseminating ideasare central to the scientific endeavor and the rulesgoverning writing and publishing data are sacrosanct,it is crucial that we all agree and adhere to commonstandards regarding plagiarism. As editors and pub-lishers of the Annals of Biomedical Engineering wetake seriously our role as a primary ‘‘gatekeeper’’ ofscientific integrity. We do not tolerate plagiarism orany kind of associated misconduct, and urge ourreviewers and readers to bring to our attention ethicalquestions or simply queries of what constitutes pla-giarism in our manuscripts and published articles. Wealso expect our authors to exercise stringent care toavoid plagiarism.

1. Don’t copy. Mimicking verbatim words fromany other paper or book (even if it’s your ownpreviously published work) is not good writing.Very short quotations are acceptable whencontained within quotation marks and citingthe source immediately following the quote. Itshould go without saying that copying withoutquotation marks and lacking appropriatecitations is blatant plagiarism, but unfortu-nately, this does occur.

2. Write in your own words.Write out all your ownideas without using someone else’s words oreven another’s writing style to help you out.This means that you should generally avoidparaphrasing as much as possible. Paraphras-ing, or rewriting someone else’s text in yourown words, is acceptable only if it occurs min-imally in the text (e.g., a paragraph) and theoriginal source is cited at the end of the para-phrased passage. The easiest way to avoid anyconcerns about plagiarism here is to not para-phrase. Use your own, original ‘‘voice’’ toconvey your ideas. Do not blend original andborrowed text without citing the borrowed text.

3. When in doubt, cite. If you find yourself citingexcessively because of this, it could be anindication that you’re not writing enough inyour own words. This is a sign you shouldconsider rewriting your paper. Common wordsand phrases do not need to be cited or put intoquotation marks, but any discussion of com-monly understood concepts must be properlycited.

4. Don’t recycle images, figures, tables or text fromone of your own previously published paperswithout citing. In general, it’s better to notrepublish a figure that you’ve published before.But if you must, cite the original paper in thefigure or table caption and make sure youmention in the text that it was from your earlierpublication and obtain permission if you havenot retained the copyrights. Do not recycle textfrom one paper to the next. Write new text foreach paper. If you fail to do these things,you will be committing self-plagiarism, which,although often unintentional, is treated thesame as willful plagiarism.

5. Ask permission. If you want to use a figure,table, or any kind of data that has not beenpublished before, and has been created orgathered by someone who is not a co-author ofyour paper, you absolutely must ask theirpermission and attribute it to them. The sameapplies if you make your own figure or table

Address correspondence to Holly Ober, University of California,

Davis, Davis, CA, USA. Electronic mail: hjober@ucdavis.edu

Annals of Biomedical Engineering, Vol. 41, No. 1, January 2013 (� 2012) pp. 1–2

DOI: 10.1007/s10439-012-0662-9

0090-6964/13/0100-0001/0 � 2012 Biomedical Engineering Society

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using their data. Seek copyright permission forevery published figure, table or illustration youintend to republish.

We recognize that many, probably even most, sci-entific publications in English are written by peoplewho are writing in English as a second language, andwho may not live in an English-speaking country. Weunderstand that non-native speakers may invest moretime and labor writing for English-language journalslike the Annals. ‘‘Patchwriting’’, blending original andborrowed text without citing the borrowed text, is acommon time-saving strategy used by non-nativeEnglish speakers and English speaking novice writersinstead of paraphrasing that, although tolerated inmany areas, is nonetheless plagiarism.2 We urgeinstitutions and supervisors to offer training andguidance to help novice writers and non-native Englishspeakers gain confidence and improve their writingskills.

However, as the recent scandals involving theplagiarized Ph.D. theses of government officials inGermany, Hungary, and Romania show,3 some scien-tists plagiarize abundantly in their native languages, nomatter what language they speak. Plagiarism detectionsoftware has become more sophisticated, but the bestdefense remains vigilance by authors, reviewers andreaders.

REFERENCES

1Akhlesh, L. Editorial: Avoidance of plagiarism. J. Nano-photon. 6:069901 (2012).2Cameron, C., H. Zhao, and M. K. McHugh. Perspective:publication ethics and the emerging scientific workforce:understanding ‘‘plagiarism’’ in a global context. Acad. Med.87(1):51–54, 2012.3Weber-Wulff, D. Viewpoint: The spectre of plagiarismhaunting Europe. BBC News 24 July 2012. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/18962349. Accessed on 8/9/12.

OBER et al.2