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AIM: To determine the prevalence of plagiarism among medical students in writing essays. METHODS: During two academic years, 198 second year medical students attending Medical Informatics course wrote an essay on one of four offered articles. Two of the source articles were available in an electronic form and two in printed form. Two (one electronic and one paper article) were considered less complex and the other two more complex. The essays were examined using plagiarism detection software "WCopyfind," which counted the number of matching phrases with six or more words. Plagiarism rate, expressed as the percentage of the plagiarized text, was calculated as a ratio of the absolute number of matching words and the total number of words in the essay. RESULTS: Only 17 (9%) of students did not plagiarize at all and 68 (34%) plagiarized less than 10% of the text. The average plagiarism rate (% of plagiarized text) was 19% (5-95% percentile=0-88). Students who were strictly warned not to plagiarize had a higher total word count in their essays than students who were not warned (P=0.002) but there was no difference between them in the rate of plagiarism. Students with higher grades in Medical Informatics exam plagiarized less than those with lower grades (P=0.015). Gender, subject source, and complexity had no influence on the plagiarism rate. CONCLUSIONS: Plagiarism in writing essays is common among medical students. An explicit warning is not enough to deter students from plagiarism. Detection software can be used to trace and evaluate the rate of plagiarism in written student assays.
The theft of someone's words or thoughts--plagiarism--has long been a concern in medical literature. The phenomenon applies to unreferenced published or unpublished data that belong to someone else, including applications for grants and a publication submitted in a different language. Other acts of plagiarism are paraphrasing without crediting the source, using "blanket" references, "second-generation" references, and duplicate or repetitive publication of one's own previously published work. Does incorporating a peer reviewer's ideas constitute plagiarism? The requirement of many journals for a short list of references is problematic, as is confusion about what constitutes common knowledge. What criteria should be used for detecting plagiarism? To make an accusation of plagiarism is serious and perilous. Motivations for plagiarism are considered, and 2 striking historical examples of plagiarism are summarized. We believe that with insight into its causes and effects, plagiarism can be eliminated.
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Some authors do not place quotation marks around words used verbatim from another source. The purpose of this study was to determine if physician faculty, English faculty, editors, and medical students would: 1) consider it plagiarism to use selected samples of verbatim or paraphrased text from a published medical journal article (without quotation marks but with citation of the original work) and 2) consider this an important type of plagiarism. METHODS: A questionnaire was circulated to medical school faculty, English faculty, health care and non-health care editors, and medical students. Respondents compared writing samples with an original article and determined if any samples displayed plagiarism. (All samples were plagiarism according to published guidelines). RESULTS: The majority of physicians did not perceive any of the samples as being plagiarism and did not consider this type of plagiarism important. The reverse was true of the majority of medical students, English faculty, and nonphysician editors. CONCLUSIONS: While perceptions varied widely within and among all groups studied, some physician faculty members and many other publishing professionals and medical students regard the use of verbatim text from another author without quotation marks as a serious form of plagiarism.
The authors investigated whether scores on the Cloze procedure as a test of plagiarism would be significantly affected by the readability of text. Undergraduates were asked to either paraphrase or plagiarize legal documents. Approximately half of the participants in the paraphrase condition received documents that were difficult to read, whereas the other half received versions that were easy to read. About 2 weeks later, participants completed Cloze tests that were based on their rewritten paraphrased or plagiarized versions of the documents. As predicted, Cloze scores from the plagiarize condition were significantly lower than those from the paraphrase condition. However, difficult-to-read documents, whether they had been paraphrased or plagiarized, yielded significantly lower Cloze scores than their easier-to-read counterparts. In spite of some methodological shortcomings, the results of this study suggest caution in the use of the Cloze procedure as a test of plagiarism.
Three experiments were conducted to investigate the relationship between the credibility of information and later unconscious plagiarism of that information. In each experiment, ideas concerning ways to reduce traffic accidents were presented from a more credible source (traffic planners) and a less credible source (college freshmen). After a distractor task, participants were asked to generate novel ways to reduce traffic accidents. In Experiments 1 and 2, unconscious plagiarism of ideas presented from the more credible source was greater than from the less credible source. In neither experiment was explicit memory for ideas from each source different in tests of source monitoring or free recall. However, the difference in unconscious plagiarism was eliminated in Experiment 3 by having participants generate the implications of ideas at study. The results are discussed in terms of the explicit factors that affect the incidence of unconscious plagiarism.
The incidence of plagiarism, intentional or unintentional, in the professional nursing arena has increased in recent years, as has the occurrence of plagiarism among nursing students. Strategies for cheating have become very sophisticated with the use of aids such as personal digital assistants, camera phones, and instant messaging. Cheating on written papers has also increased. The Internet provides students with ready-made research and academic papers, and access to Web sites on a plethora of topics. In this article, I describe my experience with plagiarism of ethics papers during students' final semester before graduation. How I discovered the plagiarized work and used the A-B-C-D-E ethical decision-making model in determining the student consequences for the event are presented.
Plagiarism is one of those ethical issues no one wants to talk about. This article sets the stage for educating readers, authors, and researchers in the fundamentals of scholarship. Legal ramifications for professional theft, deception, and misconduct provide information regarding the perpetration, constituents, and aftermath of the act of plagiarism. The article then communicates a shift in thinking about the deviation from ethical standards and strategies for the prevention of the ethical issue. Plagiarism can be prevented.
In three experiments we investigated cryptomnesia (unconscious plagiarism) and source memory using a word-search puzzle task. Subjects first alternated with a "computer partner" in locating words from 4 puzzles. They then attempted to recall their previously generated items as well as to locate additional new words. Substantially more plagiarism was committed in these tasks than was observed in a study by A. S. Brown and D. R. Murphy (1989), in which Ss generated category exemplars. Manipulations of retention interval (Experiment 1) and degree of encoding (Experiments 2a and 2b) reliably influenced plagiarism rates. Source confusions from a modified recognition memory task (Experiment 3) were used as the basis for a unitary relative strength model to explain both source and occurrence (item) forgetting.
Brown and Murphy's (1989) three-stage paradigm (generation, recall-own, generate-new) was used to assess the effects of participant elaboration on rates of unconscious plagiarism in two experiments using a creative task. Following the generation phase, participants imagined and rated a quarter of the ideas (imagery elaboration), generated improvements to another quarter (generative elaboration), and listened to a quarter of the ideas again without elaboration, with the remaining ideas acting as control. A week later, participants attempted to recall their own ideas, and generate new solutions to the same cues. In Experiment 1 both forms of elaboration equally increased correct recall, and decreased plagiarism in the generate-new task. However, generative elaboration led to significantly greater plagiarism in the recall-own task, but imagery elaboration did not. Participants in Experiment 2 were encouraged not to plagiarise by means of a financial incentive. However, they showed the same pattern as seen in Experiment 1. Therefore, contrary to a simple strength account, the probability of a person plagiarising another's ideas is linked to the particular nature of the elaboration carried out on that idea, rather than its familiarity.
Unfortunately, the frequency of plagiarism is increasing in the nursing profession. We are encouraged to write, especially those of us in academia, and we all live very active lives. Pressure to publish, especially when coupled with lack of time, can lead to plagiarism, whether inadvertent or not. This article will discuss the problem of plagiarism and provide tips on how to avoid it in your own work.
Academic plagiarism is a thorny ethical and practical problem. Perhaps readers have never personally encountered or recognized a case of plagiarism so its immediate interest and relevance may be obscure. A short case history may provide evidence that the issue of plagiarism is germane to the contemporary academic endeavor. A young university radiologist recognized his own writing in a professional journal under another's authorship, without attribution to himself, and had no idea what to do about it. He finally wrote to the author of the article who answered something to the effect that it was indeed a "remarkable coincidence" and that "great minds think alike." Unsatisfied with the response, he considered reporting the matter to the journal editor, but he was a junior faculty member while the plagiarist was a revered figure in his subspecialty. He chose not to pursue the issue further because he was afraid that the plagiarist would harm him professionally [1].
The paper reviews the formal action taken by the Silesian Medical University (SMU) in Katowice, against a professor who mass-produced plagiarized papers over many years. Plagiarized publications were based on articles of other authors, published in the European and American medical journals. Over 40 papers written by Andrzej Jendryczko, PhD, a former professor of biochemistry at SMU were declared to be plagiarized. Most of these publications have been retracted from Polish and international medical databases (Medline) by the editors of the journals involved. Dr. Jendryczko resigned in March 1998 from the Czestochowa Polytechnic, where he was a professor and Deputy Director of the Institute. Disciplinary action against him has still not been taken, because he is on sick leave. Criticizing some formal steps taken by SMU, the author proposes to establish a national committee for scientific misconduct. This independent committee, should be able by law to supervise the investigation in all Polish cases in academia which are suspected of scientific fraud. The committee also should have the power to initiate and conduct the investigation.
Student's plagiarism is a growing problem not only in the writing of controlling essays, but above all in the writing in BSc./MSc. diploma theses, which sometimes can be simply bought from ghost-writers. This is a major challenge for medical educators, particularly in paramedic professions. The aim of this paper is to overview the frequency of plagiarism among students, the factors influencing plagiarism, the ways of detecting it and potential countermeasures.
With the ever-increasing availability and accessibility of the Internet, students are able to access a multitude of resources in support of their studies. However, this has also led to an increase in their ability to cheat through plagiarising text and claiming it as their own. Increased pressures of balancing work and study have contributed to this rise. Not only confined to the student population, some academics are also guilty of engaging in this practice providing a less than favourable role model for their students. Of increasing concern is the links of this practice to professionalism or indeed in this case unprofessionalism. Both pre- and post-registration nursing students who plagiarise risk bringing the reputation of the profession into disrepute. There are a number of methods that may be used to detect plagiarism but often the penalties are menial and inconsistently applied. Overall it is essential that academic institutions foster a culture of honesty and integrity amongst its academic community. A culture that clearly emphasises that plagiarism in any form is unacceptable.
Publishing students' and researchers' papers on the World Wide Web (WWW) facilitates the sharing of information within and between academic communities. However, the ease of copying and transporting digital information leaves these authors' ideas open to plagiarism. Using tools such as the Plagiarism.org database, which compares submissions to reports and papers available on the Internet, could discover instances of plagiarism, revolutionize the peer review process, and raise the quality of published research everywhere.
Undergraduates reported their use of fraudulent excuses; 72% of the student participants claimed to have used a fraudulent excuse in college at least once. This activity was correlated with an independently obtained self-report measure of cheating (r = .38) and plagiarism (r = .27). Grade point average was negatively correlated with all 3 measures but did not reach statistical significance with the measure of plagiarism.