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(Volume: 3, Issue: 5)
Why plagiarism matters?
It is quite natural that an article gets desk-rejected from a journal, if it has a similarity score of about 20% or more with the contents of a previously- published research. The simple reason is that the editor of the journal is never willing to let the trivial research to be peer-reviewed and show-cased to a massive volume of aspirant researchers. So, what is plagiarism? Does plagiarism always occur intentionally? How does the research become trivial with plagiarized contents? What are the consequences of it on the researcher? What are the ways to avoid plagiarism?
Let’s have a glimpse at it...
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Plagiarism- What it means?
Plagiarism is the act of copying contents or ideas from the already-available published research, portraying them as one’s own work without proper citations or acknowledgements. Plagiarism, the concise meaning of which is high research similarity, can be attempted by a researcher in his/ her work, both intentionally or unplanned. A researcher performs intentional plagiarism, when he/ she is not performing truthful research and just copies contents from the articles associated with his/ her research domain. However, the researcher might also not cite the relevant research or its findings, either accidentally or if he/she is truly unaware of the consequences that it poses. At this juncture, a researcher should also be conscious that copying the contents from his/ her own published research article and using it in another modified or upgraded article without proper acknowledgements is also a plagiarism offence, termed as self-plagiarism.
Plagiarism & Trivial Research
Generally, a research article having a high similarity with known research is deemed as trivial because it indirectly implies the following: (i) There are no novel contributions in the article, (ii) Proper data collection and experimental investigations are not made, (iii) The literature is not extensively reviewed to identify the research gaps and to formulate the problem; (iv) The article lacks research integrity as well as originality and finally, (v) The plagiarized article is never going to trigger future research insights. In all, a plagiarized article is one that has fabricated or falsified research outcomes, which is at the high risk of paper retraction.
Consequences on the researcher
A researcher with a plagiarized article is surely going to be a prey for the predatory journals, who demand a huge sum of money only to publish copied contents. Moreover, if a researcher is tracked of copyright issues or other infringements with his/ her plagiarized or predatory publications, he/ she has to endure serious legal ramifications. In fact, a single plagiarized research article of the researcher can question the credibility of all his/ her research publications in the research tenure. Ultimately, the dreams on career advancements and academic excellence can all become a nightmare, as his/ her intellectual credibility is totally lost.
How to avoid plagiarism?
Knowing the adverse consequences of plagiarism, a researcher can perform the following to avoid it.
Conduct original research: Either in the methodology or in the critical reviewing of the literature or in both, the research should do original research and write the procedure and findings with required illustrations and mathematical models
Use proper citations: Usually, acknowledging the past relevant research with its associated citations build trust as well as research integrity on the article contents. If a text has to be used directly from a previous article, use them within quotation marks with corresponding citations
Check similarity manually: A researcher can maintain a note on the reference works and other relevant details, using which his/ her research notion was defined. Subsequently, the researcher can manually check the article against this note at each stage of its development, so as to ensure that “The research theme is only used and not the contents”
Use the plagiarism-checking software: The researcher can use commercially-available similarity-checking tools like, WriteCheck, URKUND or Turnitin to prevent potential plagiarism in his/ her research article. Alternatively, the researchers can also make use of the plagiarism-checking software, which are associated with the journals of refereed publishers, to prevent any journal copyright issues in the future
Avoid copying figures/tables: Figures and tables in an article depict the inferences or observations made from the research experimentation or computer simulation. Having similarity with figures or tables from previous works straightaway indicate that the research is not originally performed. So, the researchers should do the artworks of their methodology as well as tabulate and/or graphically illustrate their own research findings to keep their article free from plagiarism
Hence, The Research Seer’s Rationale on “Why plagiarism matters?” is:
“Prevent unethical publishing and pave way for research integrity”
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