Rules of the game of scientific writing: fair play and plagiarism

Retracted Science and the Retraction Index

“…The rise of the internet has facilitated plagiarism, but technology has also arisen to facilitate the detection of plagiarism or redundant publication (25,32,48,92). Some have suggested that plagiarism is a culturally relative concept, which is less likely to be regarded as an unethical practice by some scientists in non-Western countries or those belonging to the younger generation (9,22,40,91,(97)(98)(99). However, we do not share this view.…”

Publication misconduct and plagiarism retractions: a systematic, retrospective study

“…Authors from these countries, where there may be strong incentives to publish in English-language journals, where cultural differences may result in a lack of awareness of the seriousness of plagiarism, or where non-native English speakers may have difficulty paraphrasing English text, may be at greater risk of plagiarism than other forms of misconduct [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] .…”

Plagiarism: Words and Ideas

“…2 An experimental result that is described using different words is not a different result and its scientific importance is not affected by the wording. This can be contrasted with poetry for instance: words are what poetry is all about, ''the wording is the essence of the novelty'' [18]. A poet who does not have a way with words is a poor poet.…”

“…3 According to one such author this is not plagiarism, ''just borrowing better English'' [7]. These authors might in fact be praised, who are ''disinclined to sacrifice quality and accuracy for want of linguistic expertise'' [18]. Science would be more hurt by an incomprehensible article than by copied words: if the article is so unclear that the intellectual contribution is lost then arguing against this practice requires to hold words as more important than ideas-better lose ideas than copy words.…”