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The US Federal Government defines research misconduct as the “fabrication, falsification or plagiarism in proposing, performing or reviewing research or in reporting research results”. Plagiarism has itself been defined in many ways, but a common theme is “the deliberate or reckless use of someone else's thoughts, words or ideas as one's own, without clear attribution of their source”. In scientific writing, plagiarism is regarded as a serious breach of ethics. Authors have a responsibility to ensure that they make due acknowledgement every time they use the ideas or words of others. Editors of scientific journals also have a responsibility to discourage plagiarism, as well as other forms of misconduct, and to be aware of the effects that such misconduct may have on the validity of articles they publish. Avoiding plagiarism is not always easy. Research in science is based on a thorough appreciation of the current state of knowledge on the subject of the research. It is inevitable that some of your own thoughts and ideas will correlate very closely with those expressed by others. This then puts a great deal of responsibility on you, as an author, to ensure that “accidental plagiarism” does not arise when you submit a paper describing the outcomes of your research. That means that an author must take every care to ensure that the words used in writing an article are their own words and not the words of others. Some academic institutions regard even “unintentional plagiarism” as being a breach of ethics. Always make sure it is very clear to readers which ideas and phrases are your own and which are the ideas and phrases of others. This is usually done by making sure that you give a reference to any data or conclusions that have already been published by other researchers.

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2009-03-07   |   702 visitas   |   Evalua este artículo 0 valoraciones

Vol. 3 Núm.1. Febrero 2009 Pags. 1-4. J Infect Developing Countries 2009; 3(1)