How to prevent plagiarism??

As an editor of many journals and also as general chairs of many international conferences, I come across instances of plagiarism quite often! I talked to many people also about plagiarism - so I am writing some views based on my experience.

Best wishes

Sundar

I truly believe most cases are unintentional. Therefore, the best way to prevent plagiarism is to teach proper methods of citation of sources prior to the writing assignments. In my experience, students don't know what plagiarism is until they are taught what it is. For example, students copy form the Internet so routinely that many of them feel that what is on the Internet is free to copy and use without crediting the source.

In the U.S. there are respected senators and representatives who have been caught plagiarizing others' works (mostly from Wikipedia) and they seem unaware that they have done anything wrong.

The university is the written word. Nevertheless, the university has done a poor job of teaching students how to avoid plagiarism, thus avoiding the resulting public shame.

Good response Reginald. Many universities have plagiarism policy in place and routinely use anti-plagiarism software i.e. Turnitin to try and 'police' assignments. However, the policy is usually quite 'grey'. It's difficult to prove if a student has intentionally plagiarised or it was a 'mistake' - unless they have done it more than once and have been counselled about it previously. Students widely know this and, honest ignorance aside, may well feel tempted to 'test the system'. 

Thank you so much Reginald and Dean. I agree with you.  

Dear Ra'ed,

You should share this question with your network. I think it will receive a lot of answers.

Thanks.

Reginald

Thank you sir so much, I will. Yours,

How to prevent plagiarism??

As an editor of many journals and also as general chairs of many international conferences, I come across instances of plagiarism quite often! I talked to many people also about plagiarism - so I am writing some views based on my experience.

Best wishes

Sundar

It's people like me, and school teachers, who need to work hard.  You are saying that we 'know\think in some way or another (e.g. the students capabilities not that much) that others\some offices did the work\thesis\dissertation instead of the students themselves' .  But teachers need to train our students to increase their abilities and NOT to copy.  This won't happen automatically.

I taught in school for many years.  For science practicals students work in groups.  But they must pass up a separate report, they must not copy from each other.  They must be graded individually, not as a group.  Otherwise, they develop the habit of copying, and it does not seem as awful as we know it is.

Plagiarism can be  prevented by educating students and being tough with the plagiarism when happens. 

• Plagiarism is done by those" who are parasitic and inefficient for research contributions
• It can be for short gains
• It is an evil act .
• It can never nurture innovation and creative contributions

Dear Krishnan - I fully agree with your view. Thanks!

Best wishes

Sundar

 First teachers and researchers and then students be sensitised and make aware about the ill effects of plagiarism. There are softwares that check the plagiarism by identifying  duplicating or writing matter without reference. Institutions/Universities must subscribe softwares to help students and teachers.

This topic is a problem for all of science. One of the directions of its discussion can be found in the parallel flow:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_do_you_think_about_plagiarism_in_science?_tpcectx=profile_questions

Preventing  plagiarism among college students is not difficult. Few suggestions are : Firstly get to know the students by name & by their performance in courses. Secondly, tell them that the project ( case study, literature survey, research...etc.) ought not be done with "copy & paste" and that their own ideas & phrasing must be presented. Thirdly, the reward & punishment policies ought to be explained to the students. Fourthly, direct talk or oral test or some seminar has to be implemented.

If after all, the above (second , fourth) does not work, then I give the student 1 or 2 out of 10  "failure" just because the university's zero is above the known zero in maths. I did this last semester.

Thank you all, and yes dear Sundarapandian Vaidyanathan am with you.  

Dear @Ra'ed, I have had some threads about plagiarism with many good answers! Link to free paper download is given!  iThenticate is powerful tool for!

Regarding prevention, behind many good answers by my colleagues, I would like to recommend some more threads.

Education is the key for plagiarism prevention!

http://www.ithenticate.com/resources/papers/plagiarism-detection-software-misconceptions

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Does_anyone_have_a_good_advice_on_avoiding_plagiarism_in_research?_sg=mcUBlvGMliIYSrTijMrVaF0Tk9BX5OsgG1n5UwXV%2B8bPyIPAZZqjk3MigxQOfh5I_4AEreJ5p2EHCMVYa7vcZn3exHOR7hhQBMbMaammD7aDdWs3lzaTPQtIHs0M6h1LY_LYFdjOeWilCk%2FbmB5G7LAky6V%2F%2FzAl13L7WZfVwhguf%2FkfAOUujwenjxpPemuE0C&_tpcectx=search

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_the_global_scientific_community_affected_by_plagiarism_in_research_publications_If_so_how_can_it_be_prevented?_sg=7IGx6Z%2BwvicSVE7QkRx6dgmWH2teJyMYpz2rQLx4wQyUUg5FN45pUuDYk3FnIivk_ERZlmejjPFv7pNCqANHvfqQSXIM%2BLYVpHYNptZcQJtZr2XiBGw%2BCeF%2BPX8rXfBXw_po7LJ6FJdLaow%2FeBsaIz3%2BUHvD%2FvEEgIb8DzW%2B4NRUppFH2OKI8Mx6KOZsQbUtR0&_tpcectx=search

https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_do_you_think_about_plagiarism_especially_when_it_is_related_to_high_Government_officials?_sg=VzN%2BW6mTd8Z0fCh558AidY1A4XA26HHUEbTKYsuxsO8jQJ%2FSyP%2BRczflpS9W5BP9_hAFMD6dF0KhcJmztopRpl1UKwGjEMaCV4msG0VMW8cBZhOVscINdKkVL%2Fxi5DCHg_CBaNb71a72GwXOnp523Bbjw4YaAV3ylihebiFd1Ki82Y2HSr8H41u7PhoHF9gNVJ&_tpcectx=search

Dear Dr. Kamal, unfortunately it does exist among our respected community members!  

Plagiarism is generally being followed mainly due to unawareness of students/scholars, new writers and in hurried occasions following all short-cuts.

So make aware your students and young colleagues especially who have started writing with only few papers. Get these involved with a senior and be taught ways to avoid this, for this papers must be monitored at each level of drafting and compilation -- 1. To first understand the topic and then write / compile in own language (even 2 lines must not be copied as such from any paper / abstract. 2.  Expert editing by seniors with due care to change some language further here and there. 

Then before submitting get the paper checked via some plagiarism checker software available free or it just takes 50 USD and one can receive full similarity index report.  If plagiarism exceeds 15% then ----- follow 2 golden rules as 1. Condense those para / lines to minimum along with rephrasing of sentences in your own words. 2  Again some updation must be done with team leader with experience or following fully one's own language. This way plagiarism will be diluted and removed.  

Papers compiled by experts and experienced researchers/scientists themselves fully or in a team mode likewise never meet any plagiarism issue.  

Plagiarism exists, and we should be serious in preventing it and punishing those who do it.

Sure Dr. Mahfuz, I totally agree BUT I didnt hear of punishing someone in our communty in Jordan re such scientific crime!

Dear Dr. Raed, I am not in Jordan but news came to me, few years ago, that someone in your university (Obviously, I cannot reveal his name) was sacked due to plagiarism. Of course, it was not publicized at that time & it is understandable why. Now, this case is almost forgotten. To me, this proved that your university is a great one.

Preventing plagiarism is very fine reading! Link is attached! Nice tips follow in!

The following list should be an example how plagiarism is treated! 

My congratulations is going to Collin Purrington.

http://colinpurrington.com/tips/academic/preventing-plagiarism

Our colleagues from Iran did a fine paper on this issue: Academic Dishonesty at Universities: The Case of Plagiarism Among Iranian Language Students. It is also available via second link!

http://www.academia.edu/4199497/Academic_dishonesty_at_universities_The_case_of_plagiarism_among_Iranian_language_students

Article Academic Dishonesty at Universities: The Case of Plagiarism ...

There are many software that can detect plagiarism, or in fact, similarities, such as iThenticate. What is the percentage of similarities that is acceptable for similarities? Is it 20% or 30% or what.

Mahfuz,

I don't know iThenticate - but it sounds similar to Turnitin (probably the most-used international software) - and it is around 25% that the 'warning' comes up. That doesn't mean to say that it is a problem though. That 25% may represent lots of low (1%-2%) matches. It may also represent direct quotation and/or the bibliography (reference) list - which you can turn off. For me, the problem more arises if you have more than 10-15% match from a single source. 

More and more literature availability online may lead to increase in plagiarism after years, since many lines may match written by different authors -- I mean there can be a point of saturation

Dear Dean Whitehead  - I agree with you about Turn-It-In similarity report.

The real problem comes when we have over 10-15% match with a single source, and then we have to check content (from the source paper) where the match is occurring. Turn-It-In also indicates its output in terms of colour - green, orange, and red etc. Good journals reject papers with over 30% similarity overall.

Regarding Kupdeep Dhama's comment, yes  - as more and more online research content increases, it will be a big challenge for authors to write in a language as some lines may match. "Hence, the system is asymptotically stable". "Hence, the system is unstable." [These sentences may overlap for instance in examples of a paper involving control systems or dynamical systems]. The editors need to study the outputs of the Turn-It-In and make value judgements.

In cricket, we have "on-field" umpires who make the call, and they also use "DRS" technology (computer help) to make decisions. Likewise, whatever software we may use, finally the editors make the call & take the publishing decision.

Best wishes

Sundar

Dear Dean,

Both iThenticate and Turnitin are similar. I believe that the problem arises if you have a red color on the whole report or you have more than 5% match from a single source. 

In the analysis of  plagiarised doctorate of Mayor of Belgrade, "... anyone who can read can check and verify the astounding amount of copying contained in this “doctoral thesis” by using the interactive graph that accompanies this article, together with the relevant plagiarism reports generated by the program iThenticate."!

More on this You have under my thread on plagiarism, page 19!

https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_do_you_think_about_plagiarism_especially_when_it_is_related_to_high_Government_officials/19

Plagiarism of paper can be tested here: https://smallseo.tools/plagiarism-checker

What this piece of tools does is that it breaks the contents in smaller sentences and searches sentence by sentence on Google. As google have a very large database and have indexed billions of websites, the chances of finding plagiarised content is good. In this way plagiarised content can be avoided.