Plagiarism in Real Life
- Cureus retracts paper for plagiarism following Retraction Watch inquiries"The journal Cureus has retracted a 2022 paper on cancer and the environment just weeks after Retraction Watch raised questions about apparent plagiarism in the article. "
- Embattled dean accused of plagiarism in NSF report"Erick Jones, the dean of engineering at the University of Nevada in Reno, appears to have engaged in extensive plagiarism in the final report he submitted to the National Science Foundation for a grant, Retraction Watch has learned."
- Elsevier investigating papers after IEEE finds ‘self-plagiarism’"Following a complaint from a reader, editors at the U.S.-based publisher Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) determined the researchers behind two decade-old papers had committed “self-plagiarism,” charges the authors deny, Retraction Watch has learned."
- Author of ‘gibberish’ paper admits to extensive plagiarism"In a series of emails to Retraction Watch, Dulian Zeqiraj of the Polytechnic University of Tirana, Albania, admitted to lifting figures and tables from other articles and said he might also have left some “text as it is in original.”"
Definitions
Academic Integrity is a fundamental value at the University of Michigan and all students are expected to conduct their research and scholarly activities in an honest and responsible manner.
“Academic integrity is a community issue. Scholarly work is built on trust: trust that we accurately reported the lab results from which we drew conclusions, trust that we actually saw those medieval handwritten notations we analyzed, trust that the people we interviewed for a study actually said what we claimed. It is necessary to know where ideas came from in order to verify and build on them to create new knowledge.” (Beyond Plagiarism "Academic Integrity in Action")
The University of Michigan defines plagiarism as: "the appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit." (Standard Practice Guide 303.03 Procedures (PDF))
Types of plagiarism
Types of Plagiarism - Plagiarism Activities1
Intentional
- Fraud: Intentional "borrowing, purchasing, or otherwise obtaining work composed by someone else and submitted"2 under another's name.
Unintentional
- Patchwriting: Not always thought of as academic dishonestly, patchwriting is "half-copy[ing] the author's sentences... by plugging your synonyms into the author's sentence structure."3 It can occur whether or not the original author is cited.
- Failure to Cite: Summarizing, paraphrasing or using author's exact language without properly citing the source using footnotes, end-notes or parenthetical notes.
- Failure to Quote: Using the original author's exact language without using quotation marks or block quotation. Often results from students' inexperience with the material or discourse community.
1 Model taken from Rebecca Moore Howard, "Plagiarism, Authorships, and the Academic Death Penalty," College English 57 (Nov. 1995), 788 - 806.
2 Ibid., 799
3 Diana Hacker, The Bedford Handbook, (New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1998), 572.
Tips for avoiding plagiarism
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Use an assignment scheduler to develop a plan weeks before your paper is due
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Keep all notes on a single document for each paper or project (see "Note Taking Template" below)
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Keep a running bibliography of all sources consulted. Citation management tools like Zotero can be very helpful for this! (Check out our Zotero tutorial!)
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Always place quotation marks around words that you copy directly from any source (book, article, website, etc.)
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Always write the complete citation for sources you plan to use: author(s), date of publication, title (book or article), journal, volume #, issue #, pages, if web access: url and date accessed etc.
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Remember to cite text, images, video, art, or ideas that are not your own. This Citation Help Research Guide covers many styles and formats.
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When in doubt, cite anyway!
(From "Academic Integrity and Avoiding Plagiarism" presentation by Gabriel Duque)
- Note Taking TemplateThis is a text file. You may need to click on "Save Page As" from your browser to generate an editable file.
Additional resources
- Beyond Plagiarism: Best Practices for the Responsible Use of SourcesShort series of online lessons from Sweetland Center for Writing.
- Guide: Introduction to Academic IntegrityResources to help understand what academic integrity, academic ethics, and plagiarism are in practice.
- Generative AI: U-M Guidance for StudentsIncludes information about considering the ethics of using GenAI.