Frequently asked questions regarding self-plagiarism: How to avoid recycling fraud

doi:10.1016/j.jaad.2007.05.018

Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology

Volume 57, Issue 3, September 2007, Page 527

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What is self-plagiarism?

Self-plagiarism, also known as recycling fraud, occurs when an author reuses text in subsequent writings without attributing the previous publication.1, 2, 3

Is self-plagiarism ever acceptable?

Thomas Jefferson repeated prose from previous writings in the Declaration of Independence and did not cite these works.⁴ Few would argue this famous example of self-plagiarism as unacceptable.

Most also agree that experts providing opinions to popular newspapers or magazines need not cite specific previous writings.

What is copyright?

The US Constitution grants Congress the power to “promote the progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” Copyright is this legal protection of a particular expression of an idea, but not of the facts or ideas themselves.⁵ In the United States, copyright protection extends for the life of the author plus 70 years.⁶

How does self-plagiarism involve copyright infringement?

Authors of technical articles are often asked to assign copyright to a journal's owner or publisher as a condition for publication—such is the case for the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatoloy, whose owner is the American Academy of Dermatology. In many cases, the publisher handles permission requests from authors. Elsevier does this for the Journal. Subsequent republication by the author of copyrighted text without permission and citation is technically illegal—but permission is

Have authors been legally sanctioned for violating copyright on their own words?

Few sanctions have been handed down, because the courts have generally recognized that “authors have special rights to their words not withstanding copyright.”³

If copyright law has not been enforced against authors repeating themselves, then why worry about self-plagiarism?

Self-plagiarism is not acceptable in academic writing because academic writing is grounded by its references, and authors are expected to cite their closely related previous writing.

References (6)

Hexham I. Academic plagiarism defined. Available at: http://www.ucalgary.ca/∼hexham/study/plag.html. Accessed May 2,...
Samuelson P. Self-plagiarism or fair use? Communications of the ACM 1994;27:8. Available at:...
Scanlon PM. Song from myself: an anatomy of self-plagiarism. Plagiary: Cross-Disciplinary Studies in Plagiarism,...

There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

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This extended editorial asks whether peer-review is continuing to operate effectively in policing research misconduct in the academic world. It explores the mounting problems encountered by editors of journals such as Research Policy (RP) in dealing with research misconduct. Misconduct can take a variety of forms. Among the most serious are plagiarism and data fabrication or falsification, although fortunately these still seem to be relatively rare. More common are problems involving redundant publication and self-plagiarism, where the boundary between acceptable behaviour (attempting to exploit the results of one's research as fully and widely as possible) and unacceptable behaviour (in particular, misleading the reader as to the originality of one's publications) is rather indistinct and open to interpretation. With the aid of a number of case-studies, this editorial tries to set out clearly where RP Editors regard that boundary as lying. It also notes with concern a new form of misconduct among certain journal editors, who attempt to engineer an increase in their journal's ‘impact factor’ through a practice of ‘coercive citation’. Such problems with research integrity would appear to be unintended, and certainly undesirable, consequences of the growing trend to quantify research performance through various indicators.
Tips on how to write a paper

2008, Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology

Citation Excerpt :

Ethical breaches of publication and scientific integrity exist including: data manipulation and falsification, duplicate manuscripts, redundant publication, plagiarism (print and electronic), human or animal use concerns, and author conflicts of interest with failure to disclose.32,33 Self-plagiarism occurs when authors recycle their own previous work without full disclosure to the original publication.34,35 This occurs in the form of redundant and dual publication, copyright violation, and “salami publishing.”

Academics involve the search, education, and communication of knowledge. The credibility, advancement, and prestige of any specialty, program, or person involved in academics is enhanced by the quality of papers published. This occurs in the form of peer-reviewed research, along with observations and wisdom from institutional and private practice. Learning and mentoring medical manuscript writing skills is a process that improves with training and doing. The purpose of this manuscript is to serve as a guide with tips to aide the process of better writing, which may be particularly helpful to those in search of writing skills mentorship.
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Funding sources: None.

Disclosure: Dr Ellis is President of the postpublication peer review resource www.JournalReview.org . Dr Dellavalle and Mr Banks are, respectively, chair and member of the advisory committee to www.JournalReview.org .

Reprints not available from the authors.

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