Environmental Health Sciences

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is using someone else's ideas without giving them proper credit, that is, a citation in your paper.  The key to avoiding plagiarism is give credit where credit is due.

Adapted from the Academic Integrity web page, University Library.

Problem:  Not properly citing sources
Solution:  Citation management software, such as Mendeley, Zotero, or EndNote. You can also carefully note citation information by hand in your research notes, then use the References function in Word to add citations.

Examples: 

When to cite:   When you have quoted someone exactly (placing the quoted material in quotation marks) or have used original information from someone else & have paraphrased it appropriately.

When you don't have to cite:  When you're reporting 1) your own original analysis of other people's original work or 2) common knowledge, that is, information that is commonly known by your peers.  Note that this can change, depending on the context of your writing assignment.

Problem:   Using someone else's ideas exactly as published.
Solutions:  Paraphrase (changing both words and sentence structure) or use the exact quotation and cite the source.

Example: 

Original text: Ethnic and racial diversity are increasing in many countries, primarily as a result of increased migration linked to globalization of trade, education and markets and to the movement of refugees.  This offers formidable challenges in the development of policies and strategies to promote the reduction in inequalities in health and improvements in health care.  From ch. 8, Raj S. Bhopal, Migration, Ethnicity, Race and Health in Multicultural Societies, 2d ed., Oxford University Press http://site.ebrary.com/lib/umich/docDetail.action?docID=10823205

Plagiarism:  Ethnic and racial diversity are on the rise in many countries, for the most part because of increased migration due to trade around the world, education and markets and to refugees. This makes it hard to develop policies and strategies to reduce inequalities in health and improvements in health care. (12).

This is plagiarism because both the words that are used and the sentence structure are very similar to the original sentence.  Providing a citation to the original source of information is not enough.

Acceptable:  When governments think about developing polices to decrease inequalities in health, it is important to take into account that the rise in refugees and in migration due to trade has increased the variety in racial and ethnicity in many countries. (12).

This is not plagiarism because the information has been summarized using different words and the sentence structure is different from the original text. 

Acceptable:  According to Raj S. Bhopal, the increase that we can see in racial and ethnic diversity around the world "offers formidable challenges in the development of policies and strategies to promote the reduction in inequalities in health and improvements in health care.”(12)

This is not plagiarism because a direct quote is used, with quotation marks, and  the quotation is properly cited.

In 2023, BMC Infectious Diseases retracted an article due to issues about data and results.

In 2015, the American Journal of Public Health retracted an article due to improper attributions & materials published elsewhere in a copyrighted source.

Win AZ. Child Farm Laborers. Am J Public Health. 2015 Jul;105(7):1312. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2015.302623. Epub 2015 May 14. Retraction in: Am J Public Health. 2015 Aug;105(8):1726. PMID: 25973808; PMCID: PMC4463389.

Good laboratory or clinical practice means that data needs to be:

• Collected in a specified manner (lab manuals, electronic or paper), i.e., early stages of data management
• Interpreted carefully & appropriately
• Kept safely & forever, in case you or someone else needs it, i.e., later stages of data management
• Cited in papers, just like other sources of information.

Why organize your data?

• Organized data is more comprehensible, either to others or to researcher when they look back at it later.
• Organized workflows lead to more efficient research process.
• Data management ensures access to data in the future, either for others or for the researcher.
• Two terms you will hear a lot:  reproducibility and replicability.
  • Reproducibility:  "obtaining consistent computational results using the same input data, computational steps, methods,code, and conditions of analysis."
  • Replicability:  "obtaining consistent results across studies aimed at answering the same scientific question, each of which has obtained its own data.
  • Definitions are from the NIH Office of Data Strategy

It's not just words that need to be properly used & cited.  Use care in collecting data from journal articles or creating data in the lab.

• Take careful notes while conducting research in books & journals.
• Cite your sources when using data created by other researchers.
• Document your own research in the field or in the lab thoroughly & completely.

A data citation includes the typical components of other citations

Author or creator: the individual(s) or organization(s) that created the data
Date:  the date the data was published or otherwise released to the public
Title: the title of the dataset or a brief description
Publisher: organization that hosts the data (such as a repository/archive)
DOI (or URL)
Date accessed: the date that you found the information

For further guidance:  https://libguides.lib.msu.edu/c.php?g=96245&p=626239    https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/pages/datamanagement/citations.html

Examples in APA style 

• Schneider, Barbara, and Waite, Linda J. The 500 Family Study [1998-2000: United States]. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2008-06-03. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR04549.v1
• Federal Judicial Center. Judicial District Data Book, 1983: [United States]. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2006-01-18. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR08439.v1
• Pew Hispanic Center. (2008). 2007 Hispanic Healthcare Survey [Data file and code book]. Available from Pew Hispanic Center Web site: http://pewhispanic.org/datasets/

From: https://libguides.lib.msu.edu/c.php?g=96245&p=626239 & https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/pages/datamanagement/citations.html

PLOS One retracted an article in 2022 because of concerns about data, results, and plagiarism.

Peng Q, Liu L, Li T, Lei C, Wan H (2022) Prognostic impact of prognostic nutritional index on renal cell carcinoma: A meta-analysis of 7,629 patients. PLoS ONE 17(3): e0265119. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265119  The PLOS ONE Editors (2022) Retraction: Prognostic impact of prognostic nutritional index on renal cell carcinoma: A meta-analysis of 7,629 patients. PLOS ONE 17(8): e0273158. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0273158

PLOS One appended an Expression of Concern to an article in 2020, due to concerns about data, results, & concerns about third party involvement.

 Ontiveros ES, Whelchel BD, Yu J, Kaplan JL, Sharpe AN, Fousse SL, et al. (2020) Development of plasma and whole blood taurine reference ranges and identification of dietary features associated with taurine deficiency and dilated cardiomyopathy in golden retrievers: A prospective, observational study. PLoS ONE 15(5): e0233206. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0233206. The PLOS ONE Editors (2020) Expression of Concern: Development of plasma and whole blood taurine reference ranges and identification of dietary features associated with taurine deficiency and dilated cardiomyopathy in golden retrievers: A prospective, observational study. PLOS ONE 15(9): e0239078. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0239078