On plagiarism

Comment to the Drury Mirror on 5 Oct 07:

Different people have different definitions of plagiarism. The various recent incidents at Southern Illinois University [SIU] illustrate some of the issues. In the matter of Wendler the issue of "self-plagiarism" arose: is it all right for an author to submit an article copied from an EARLIER article by the same author without referencing the earlier article? Can a student copy from an earlier paper to create the text for a later assignment? In the scientific journal business, it is NOT acceptable to copy text from an earlier paper by the author into a later paper by that author without citing the earlier paper. This is considered DUPLICATE publication, which the journal Fertility & Sterility considered to be plagiarism. In the matter of Poshard, an issue which arises is whether an author needs to cite sources reflecting information that might be considered baseline knowledge to the reader (verbatim copying of this background is an additional issue).

Lawrence B. Ebert
Oct. 5, 2007