BMJ  2007;335 (10 November), doi:10.1136/bmj.39392.602523.47

Editor's Choice

Plagiarism and punishment

Plagiarism is one of the three high crimes of research fraud. The US Office for Research Integrity (ORI) puts it up there with the big boys, fabrication and falsification, in its definition of research misconduct (http://ori.dhhs.gov). Some have argued that the definition should extend to lesser crimes such as undeclared conflict of interest and duplicate publication, but to my knowledge no one has questioned that theft of another person's work is fraud.

How big a problem is plagiarism? The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) lists 18 cases of alleged plagiarism reviewed from 1998 to 2005 (www.publicationethics.org.uk), but as with research fraud generally this is likely to be a substantial underestimate of the true extent. Detection has been difficult in the past, but the internet, which has made plagiarism much easier to commit, is also making it easier to detect, as Michael Cross explains (doi: 10.1136/bmj.39388.668773.47). . . . [Full text of this article]

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This article has been cited by other articles:

• Marcovitch, H. (2008). Croatia is let down. BMJ 336: 174-174 [Full text]  
• Marusic, M. (2008). Scientific misconduct in Croatia. BMJ 336: 173-174 [Full text]  

Rapid Responses:

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"If you fail to plan, you plan to fail."

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