Challenging the profiles of a plagiarist: a study of abstracts submitted to an international interdisciplinary conference

Abstract

Much of the current literature on plagiarism focuses on students, attempting to understand how students view the concept of plagiarism, the best ways to prevent it, and the impact of collaboration on the concept of original authorship. In this article, we look at the role of plagiarism in 761 conference abstracts written by graduate students, early-to late-career faculty, and industry representatives, representing institutions from nearly 70 countries. These abstracts were submitted for participation in an international conference focused on the liberal arts hosted by our institution over the past four years. This study analyzes the corpus for patterns of plagiarism among professional academic writers. Our findings indicate that, while other demographic categories were not consistent indicators of text-matching, full professors were the most prevalent group to produce self-plagiarized abstracts. Overall, our study illuminates the significance of power dynamics in conferences' efforts to maintain academic integrity.

Estimating the prevalence of text overlap in biomedical conference abstracts

“…Indeed, while the presence of plagiarism in scientific publications has been well-documented, this type of misbehavior in conference meetings has received limited attention. One early study of conference submissions reported that self-plagiarism, rather than plagiarism, was the basis for most of the textual overlap reported [ 40 ]; another study of actual conference papers revealed roughly the opposite outcome [ 41 ]. Two other studies of papers presented at conferences in the field of Management have reported considerable amounts of textual overlap [ 42 , 43 ].…”

“…Our study was grounded by the informal observation that while guidance on research integrity is stated by most scholarly journals [ 44 ], ethical standards for scientific conferences (e.g., cautioning authors against plagiarism) are vague or sometimes not explicitly stated but only implied upon submission of scientific findings. Moreover, with some exceptions [ 41 , 45 ], this form of scientific exchange does not appear to be as heavily screened for integrity issues as journal papers are [ 12 ]. In view of growing concerns about the integrity of the scientific record and the need for transparency in all aspects of research, we attempted to estimate the extent of text overlap in a large sample of conference abstracts spanning several meetings across various disciplines in the biomedical sciences.…”

An investigation on Turkish EFL Majoring Students’ Unethical Behaviors

“…"Plagiarism, collusion and other forms of academic misconduct have always been a regrettable but unavoidable aspect of academic existence" (Carroll & Appleton, 2001, p.6). However, plagiarism is not an easy concept to identify when considering various profoundly contextualized authorship and textual practices in a variety of domains and organizations (Hodges, Bickham, Schmidt & Seawright, 2017). Since textual regulations of approved submissions have changed over time and they show varies from context to context, even within the same social community, it is getting more problematic to define plagiarism (Hodges et al, 2017).…”

“…However, plagiarism is not an easy concept to identify when considering various profoundly contextualized authorship and textual practices in a variety of domains and organizations (Hodges, Bickham, Schmidt & Seawright, 2017). Since textual regulations of approved submissions have changed over time and they show varies from context to context, even within the same social community, it is getting more problematic to define plagiarism (Hodges et al, 2017). Coughlin (2015) states that defining the concept of plagiarism in a clear way is not the core of the problem, but it is constructing concurrence and having learners and lecturers adopt the definition and implement necessary disciplinary and educational steps with a sensible and sustainable manner.…”

“…Some students are more prone to cheat than the others are and among the international students who deal with language difficulties constitute a risk group, as English is not their native language (Park, 2003). Hodges et al (2017)indicate that many non-Western nations do not inform students clearly about the ethical standards of publication and as their cultural perspectives and approaches towards plagiarism or patchwriting are different from the ones of western nations, they are 'more likely to be caught by Turnitin and other text matching software' (p.2). In this context, O'Neill (2012) claims that most of the students who were caught when attempting or committing plagiarism or misconduct declared that they were unaware of the seriousness of their actions and they have various understandings regarding academic dishonesty.…”