Mostafa - there are many ways that we can assist our students to avoid the pitfalls of plagiarism and adhere to academic integrity principles:

1. Demonstrate good practice. As an experienced publisher, reviewer, editor etc - I run publication workshops for colleagues, HDR students, early career researchers (ECRs) etc - especially in my College and University. Part of these well-attended workshops is covering what plagiarism is and how to avoid it.

2. Refer students - undergraduate and post-graduate to academic integrity policy - through online links in their topic sites and otherwise. There are many general online resources as well. For instance, all Australian and New Zealand universities have an academic integrity policy and they are all similar in their nature and scope.

3. Follow up students early who plagiarise (especially international students) and refer them to the policy and how to avoid in future i.e. effective paraphrasing and not directly cutting-and-pasting. Place them on the university register, if available, to observe for future lapsed behaviour.

4. Demonstrate the use of anti-plagiarism software i.e. Turnitin as a useful mechanism for checking drafts and amending them prior to submission of assignments, theses etc.

5. Learn to distinguish between accidental and intentional plagiarism i.e. collusion between students, purchasing online content etc.

Mostafa - there are many ways that we can assist our students to avoid the pitfalls of plagiarism and adhere to academic integrity principles:

1. Demonstrate good practice. As an experienced publisher, reviewer, editor etc - I run publication workshops for colleagues, HDR students, early career researchers (ECRs) etc - especially in my College and University. Part of these well-attended workshops is covering what plagiarism is and how to avoid it.

2. Refer students - undergraduate and post-graduate to academic integrity policy - through online links in their topic sites and otherwise. There are many general online resources as well. For instance, all Australian and New Zealand universities have an academic integrity policy and they are all similar in their nature and scope.

3. Follow up students early who plagiarise (especially international students) and refer them to the policy and how to avoid in future i.e. effective paraphrasing and not directly cutting-and-pasting. Place them on the university register, if available, to observe for future lapsed behaviour.

4. Demonstrate the use of anti-plagiarism software i.e. Turnitin as a useful mechanism for checking drafts and amending them prior to submission of assignments, theses etc.

5. Learn to distinguish between accidental and intentional plagiarism i.e. collusion between students, purchasing online content etc.

Dear Dean,

Nice illustration! Your respone is really informative and comprehensive.

Not a problem Mostafa. Glad that it helps!!

Advise them on the implications and lead by example.

Mostafa Morady - In an Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) based society, academic misconduct has become very easy and reached to a high level of proportions. This has distorted the basic purpose of academic research where originality is lost and replication of work has become a dangerous social evil. Intellectual honesty demands that all members of the academic community including students should acknowledge the originators of the ideas, words and data which form the basis of their own work.

As a teacher and researcher, we should teach and help our students:-

1. Acknowledge the contributions of other/s and the source of his/her ideas. It is very important to give credit to the original author and enclose that information in quotations and to indicate the specific source of that text including reference citation and page number.

2. Bad paraphrasing or patch writing must be avoided and deleting some words/phrases or inserting synonyms in original work is plagiarism without giving credit to original author. Inappropriate paraphrasing is perhaps the most common form of plagiarism and, at the same time, the most controversial.

3. While paraphrasing others’ work, it is essential to give proper credit and provide the proper citation. The significance lies in the fact that in good paraphrasing although the structure of sentence does change but the essence still remains the same.

4. Understand properly the word, sentence or paragraph of the original text and the meaning both manifest and implied in it before paraphrasing it so that it becomes easier to change, alter or re-frame the text.

5. What cannot be paraphrased properly it is good to put that in quotation marks with reference to original author (e.g., foot note or end note) and thus maintain the proper citation.

6. General common knowledge is considered to be public domain and is assumed to be known by readership e.g., dates of historical events, information that most people know, such as that water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit etc. do not need to be cited.. A word of caution is that it is better to cite information if there is doubt on its belonging to public domain.

7. Self-plagiarism defeats the very purpose of creative and original work as its reuse in subsequent publications deceives the readers about its earlier use. This is self-defeating and violation of ethical writing.

8. Redundant and duplicate publications must be avoided and same data and interpretations should not be published again and again.

9. It is scientifically and ethically unacceptable to divide a larger body of study into smaller or slice studies and publish it journal articles as it distorts the essence of original study unless it is given new interpretation and highlights some implied facts.

A student must write attentively and a supervisor is supposed to check the work carefully. Lastly, before submitting your manuscript, it should be checked by a good software like Turnitin.

Thank you all!

I think plagiarism has a close connection with culture. In some cultures, success is defined through cheating and in some success comes from hard-working and innovation.

Hi Mostafa

As a non-graduated researcher, I realized many interesting aspects in modern science. First it is the data overflow in modern science: pick out a current research paper and compare it to a work of genius scientists of 1850, 1900, 1920.

and you are immediatly realizing, what the differences and the problems are.

Sometimes I read such things in private...can be relaxing or mind opening like yoga.

For my practical labworking a PHD Thesis is mostly more helpful than other publications, because it is more, complex and in detail and gives better practical connections.

On the other hand: if I talk to colleagues that practically support f.e. PHD students with their graduation, they often tell me that a majority of the PHD-Thesises are not really origin works, they are more or less copies, hidden behind huge lists of literature, that even experts are not able to overlook...but this is not "cheating"

For me the question is not: Cheat or not...our current system supports the ones that can hide their non-original ideas behind a big wall of scientific decoration.

I earn my salary in industrial research since almost 40 years and my opinion to separate "bad" papers from "good" is f.e.:

if a paper of a natural science discipline starts with a big analysis of the global economic possibilities, the sales and growth rates or marketing analysis, it is mostly not worth to continue reading, the same with articles the list hundreds of citations or endless lists of f.e NMR-bands without showing the analysis itself; this is mostly a make-up for weak scientific work.

If you are Professor, Instructor or Teacher: think about ideas like Okham's Razor, cut away the overgrowing flow of informations, that is not really supporting a quality research....and don't force young people to create so much fake knowledge like we currently do. Clearness, awakeness, motivation and consciousness have other sources....

Dear Frank,

It was nice to hear your experience and opinion.

Thank you Mostafa...I forgot mentioning the best tip:

if you read a little bit of Rumi, Hafiz, Khalil Gibran, Tagore or similar spirits before starting, your mind is already more opened...

Thank you all for your contribution.