dissertations of plagiarism

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• J Korean Med Sci
• v.35(27); 2020 Jul 13

Similarity and Plagiarism in Scholarly Journal Submissions: Bringing Clarity to the Concept for Authors, Reviewers and Editors

Aamir raoof memon.

Institute of Physiotherapy & Rehabilitation Sciences, Peoples University of Medical & Health Sciences for Women, Nawabshah (Shaheed Benazirabad), Sindh, Pakistan.

INTRODUCTION

What constitutes plagiarism? What are the methods to detect plagiarism? How do “plagiarism detection tools” assist in detecting plagiarism? What is the difference between plagiarism and similarity index? These are probably the most common questions regarding plagiarism that many research experts in scientific writing are usually faced with, but a definitive answer to them is less known to many. According to a report published in 2018, papers retracted for plagiarism have sharply increased over the last two decades, with higher rates in developing and non-English speaking countries. 1 Several studies have reported similar findings with Iran, China, India, Japan, Korea, Italy, Romania, Turkey, and France amongst the countries with highest number of retractions due to plagiarism. 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 A study reported that duplication of text, figures or tables without appropriate referencing accounted for 41.3% of post-2009 retractions of papers published from India. 5 In Pakistan, Journal of Pakistan Medical Association started a special section titled “Learning Research” and published a couple of papers on research writing skills, research integrity and scientific misconduct. 6 , 7 However, the problem has not been adequately addressed and specific issues about it remain unresolved and unclear. According to an unpublished data based on 1,679 students from four universities of Pakistan, 85.5% did not have a clear understanding of the difference between similarity index and plagiarism (unpublished data). Smart et al. 8 in their global survey of editors reported that around 63% experienced some plagiarized submissions, with Asian editors experiencing the highest levels of plagiarized/duplicated content. In some papers, journals from non-English speaking countries have specifically discussed the cases of plagiarized submissions to them and have highlighted the drawbacks in relying on similarity checking programs. 9 , 10 , 11 The cases of plagiarism in non-English speaking countries have a strong message for honest researchers that they should improve their English writing skills and credit used sources by properly citing and referencing them. 12

Despite aggregating literature on plagiarism from non-Anglophonic countries, the answers to the aforementioned questions remain unclear. In order to answer these questions, it is important to have a thorough understanding of plagiarism and bring clarity to the less known issues about it. Therefore, this paper aims to 1) define plagiarism and growth in its prevalence as well as literature on it; 2) explain the difference between similarity and plagiarism; 3) discuss the role of similarity checking tools in detecting plagiarism and the flaws on completely relying on them; and 4) discuss the phenomenon called Trojan citation. At the end, suggestions are provided for authors and editors from developing countries so that this issue maybe collectively addressed.

Defining plagiarism and its prevalence in manuscripts

To begin with, plagiarism maybe defined as “ when somebody presents the published or unpublished work of others, including ideas, scholarly text, images, research design and data, as new and original rather than crediting the existing source of it. ” 13 The common types of plagiarism, including direct, mosaic, paraphrasing, intentional (covert) or unintentional (accidental) plagiarism, and self-plagiarism have been discussed in previous reviews. 14 , 15 , 16

Evidence suggests that the first paper accused for plagiarism was published in 1979 and there has been a substantial growth in the cases of plagiarism over time. 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 8 , 17 Previous studies have pointed that plagiarism is prevalent in developing and non-English speaking countries but the occurrence of plagiarism in developed countries suggests that it is rather a global problem. 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 18 , 19 , 20 As of today (1 April 2020), the search conducted in Retraction Database ( http://retractiondatabase.org/RetractionSearch.aspx ?) for papers retracted for plagiarism found 2,280 documents. Similarly, Scopus search for plagiarism in title of journal articles found 2,159 results. This suggests that the papers retracted for plagiarism are in fact higher than the papers published on this issue. However, what we see now may not necessary be true i.e., the cases of plagiarism might be higher than we know. Certainly, database search for papers tagged for plagiarism is limited to indexed journals only, which keeps non-indexed journals (both low-quality and deceptive journals) out of focus. 5 , 21 Moreover, journal coverage may vary from one database to the other as reported in a recent paper on research dissemination in South Asia. 22 Therefore, both the prevalence of plagiarism and literature published on it as reported by database search are most likely “ understated as of today .” 5

Reasons for plagiarism: lack of understanding and poor citing practices

Although reasons for plagiarism are complex, previous papers have suggested possible causes for plagiarism by authors. 16 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 One of the major but less known reason for this might be that the students, naïve researchers, and even some faculty members either lack clarity about what constitutes plagiarism or are unable to differentiate similarity index versus plagiarism. 24 , 26 , 27 For example, a recent online survey conducted on the participants in the AuthorAID MOOC on Research Writing found that 84.4% of the survey participants were unaware of the difference between similarity index and plagiarism, though almost all of them had reported having an understanding of plagiarism. 24 The same paper reported that one in three participants admitted that they had plagiarized at some point during their academic career. 24 Therefore, it is important to have clarity about what constitutes plagiarism and the difference between similarity index and plagiarism so that the increasing rates of plagiarism could be deterred.

The ‘existing source’ or ‘original source’ in the definition of plagiarism refers to the main (primary) source and not the source (secondary) from where the author extracts the information. For example, someone cites a paper for a passage on mechanism of how exercise affects sleep but the cited paper aims to determine the prevalence of sleep disorders and exercise level rather than the mechanistic association. A thorough evaluation finds that the cited paper had used the text from another review paper that talked about the mechanisms relating sleep with exercise behavior. This phenomenon of improper secondary (or indirect) citations may be common among students and novice researchers, particularly from developing countries, and should be discouraged. 27

SIMILARITY INDEX

Plagiarism vs. similarity index and the role of similarity checking tools.

Plagiarism as defined above refers to the intentional (covert) or unintentional (accidental) theft of published or unpublished intellectual property (i.e., words or ideas), whereas similarity index refers to “ the extent of overlap or match between an author's work compared to other existing sources (books, websites, student thesis, and research articles) in the databases of similarity checking tools. ” 9 , 24 The advancements in information technology has helped researchers get help from various freely available (i.e., Viper, eTBLAST/HelioBLAST, PlagScan, PlagiarismDetect, Antiplagiat, Plagiarisma, DupliChecker) and subscription-based (i.e., iThenticate, Turnitin, Similarity Check) similarity checking tools. 8 , 24 Many journal editors use iThenticate and/or Similarity Check (Crossref) for screening submitted manuscripts for similarity detection whereas Turnitin is commonly used by universities and faculty to assess text similarity in students' work; however, there is a fairness issue that not every journal or university, particularly those from developing countries, can afford to pay for using these subscription-based services. 28 For instance, an online survey found that only about 18% participants could use Turnitin through their university subscription. 24 Another problem is the way these tools are commonly referred to as i.e., plagiarism detection tools, plagiarism checking software, or plagiarism detection programs. However, based on the function they perform, it would be appropriate to call them differently, such as similarity checking tools, similarity checkers, text-matching tools, or simply text-duplicity detection tools. 5 , 8 , 23 This means that these tools help locate matching or overlapping text (similarity) in submitted work, without directly flagging up plagiarism. 24

Taking Turnitin as an example, these tools reflect the text similarity through color codes, each linked to an online source of it; details for this have been described elsewhere. 23 , 28 Journal editors, universities and some organizations consider text above specific cutoff values for the percentage of similarity as problematic. According to a paper, 5% or less text similarity (overlap of the text in the manuscript with text in the online literature) is acceptable to some journal editors, while others might want to put the manuscript under scrutiny if the text similarity is over 20%. 29 , 30 Another paper observed that journal editors tend to reject a manuscript if text similarity is above 10%. 31 The study on participants completing the AuthorAID MOOC on Research Writing also found that some participants reported that their institutions consider text similarity of less than 20% as acceptable. 24 As an example, the guidelines of the University Grants Commission of India allow for similarity up to 10% as acceptable or minor (Level 0), but anything above is categorized into different levels (based on the percentages), each with separate list of repercussions for students and researchers. 32 This approach might miss the cases where the acceptable similarity of 10% comes from a single source, especially if the editors relied on the numbers only. In addition, this approach has the potential for punishing authors who have not committed plagiarism at all. To illustrate this, the randomly written text presented in Fig. 1 would be considered plagiarism based on the rule of cutoff values. Some authors opine that text with over four consecutive words or a number of word strings should be treated as plagiarized. 28 , 33 This again is not a good idea as the text “the International Physical Activity Questionnaire was used to measure …” would be same in several papers, but this is definitely not plagiarism because the methodology of different papers on the same topic could be similar; so, the decision should not be based on the numbers reflected by similarity detection tools. 28 Therefore, it would be prudent not to set any cutoff values for text similarity as it will lead to a slippery slope (“a course of action that seems to lead inevitably from one action or result to another with unintended consequences” –defined by Merriam-Webster Dictionary ) and give “a sense of impunity to the perpetrators.” 32

Drawbacks of similarity checking tools

There are a few drawbacks on completely relying on the similarity checking tools. First, these tools are not foolproof and might miss the incidents of translational plagiarism and figure plagiarism. 24 Translational plagiarism is the most invisible type of copying in non-Anglophone countries where an article published in languages other than English is copied (with or without minor modifications) and published in an English journal or vice versa. 10 This is indeed extremely difficult type of plagiarism to detect, and different approaches (e.g., use of Google translator) to address it have been recently reported. 34 , 35 Nevertheless, there might be some cases where this practice maybe acceptable, such as publishing policy papers (see “ Identifying predatory or pseudo-journals” – this paper was published in International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine , National Medical Journal of India , and Biochemia Medica in 2017 by authors affiliated with World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) – or “The revised guidelines of the Medical Council of India for academic promotions: Need for a rethink” – this paper was published in over ten journals during 2016 by four journal editors and endorsed by members (not all) of the Indian Association of Medical Journal Editors, for example). Second, text similarity in some parts of manuscript (i.e., methods and results) should be weighed differently from other sections (i.e., introduction and discussions) and its conclusions. 31 In addition, based on the personal experience of the author of this paper, some individuals might use a sophisticated technique to avoid detection of high similarity through the use of inappropriate synonyms, jargon, and deliberate grammatical and structural errors in the text of the manuscript. Third, plagiarism of ideas may be missed by these tools as they can only detect plagiarism of words. 23 , 32 Therefore, similarity checking tools tend to underestimate plagiarized text or sometimes overestimate non-plagiarized material as problematic ( Fig. 1 ). 24 , 36 It should be noted that these tools serve as only an aid to determine suspected instances of plagiarism and the text of the manuscript should always be evaluated by experts, so “a careful human cannot be replaced.” 31 , 37 A few papers published in the Journal of Korean Medical Science have presented the examples where plagiarized content was missed by similarity checking tools and later noticed after a careful examination of the text. 9 , 10 Finally, plagiarism of unpublished work cannot be detected by these tools as they are limited to online sources only. 23 This is particularly important in the context of developing countries where research theses/dissertations of students are not deposited in research repositories, and where commercial, predatory editing and brokering services exist. 10 , 38 For example, the research repository of the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan allows deposition of doctoral theses only, and less than five universities (out of over 150) across the country have a research repository allowing for deposition of scholarly content. 38 Recently some strange trend of predatory editing and brokering services has emerged that offer clones of previously published papers or unpublished work to non-Anglophone or some lazy authors demanding quick and easy route to publications for promotion and career advancement. 10 Although plagiarism of unpublished work would not be easy for experts to detect, this may be possible through their previous experience and scholarly networks.

TROJAN CITATION: PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

A recent experience worth discussion in context to plagiarism comes in the shape of the Trojan citation where someone “ makes reference to a source one time to in order to evade detection (by editors and readers) of bad intentions and provide cover for a deeper, more pervasive plagiarism. ” 39 This practice is particularly common in those with an intent of deceiving the readers and playing with the system. A few months ago, the author of this paper was invited to review a manuscript on predatory publishing by a journal. The content of the manuscript appeared suspicious but was not labelled “plagiarized” during the first round of the review. However, during the second round, it was noticed that this was a case of Trojan citation where the author(s) cited the main source for a minor point and copied the major part of the manuscript from a paper published in Biochemia Medica (a Croatian journal) with slight modification in the content. 40 The editor of the journal was informed about this and the manuscript was rejected further processing. This example suggests that careful human intervention by experts is required to highlight the cases of plagiarism.

In conclusion, what we know about the growth in the prevalence of plagiarism may be ‘just the tip of the iceberg’. Therefore, collective contribution from authors, reviewers, and editors, particularly from Asia-Pacific region, is required. Authors from the Asia-Pacific region and developing countries, with an expertise on this topic, should play their role by supporting journal editors and through their mentorship skills. Furthermore, senior researchers should encourage and help their honors and master students to publish their unpublished work before it gets stolen by commercial, brokering agencies. They should also work in close collaboration with universities and organizations related with higher education in countries where this issue is not properly addressed, and should facilitate education and training sessions on plagiarism as previous evidence suggests that workshops and online training sessions may be helpful. 5 On the other hand, journal editors from Asia-Pacific region and developing countries should not judge the manuscripts solely on the basis of percentage of similarity as reflected by similarity checking services. They should have a database of their own where manuscripts about plagiarism in scientific writing, for example, should be sent for review to the experts on this subject. As journal editors may not be experts in all fields, networking and seeking help from experts would be helpful in avoiding the cases of plagiarism in the future. It would be appropriate that the journal editors and the trainee editors, particularly from the resource-limited countries, are educated about the concept of scientific misconduct and the advancement in knowledge around this area. Moreover, journal editors should publish and publically discuss the cases of plagiarism as a learning experience for others. The Journal of Korean Medical Science has used this approach regarding cases of plagiarism, which other journals from the region are encouraged to adopt. 9 , 10 Likewise, a paper discussing case scenarios of salami publication (i.e., “ a distinct form of redundant publication which is usually characterized by similarity of hypothesis, methodology or results but not text similarity ”) serves as a good example of how journal editors may facilitate authors to utilize their mentorship skills and support journals in educating researchers. 41 There should be strict penalties on cases of plagiarism, and safety measures for security of whistleblowers should be in place and be ensured. By doing so, evil and lazy authors who bypass the system would be punished and honest authors would be served. Thus, the take-home message for editors from Asia-Pacific region is that a collective effort and commitment from authors, reviewers, editors and policy-makers is required to address the problem of plagiarism, especially in the developing and non-English speaking countries.

Disclosure: The author has no potential conflicts of interest to disclose.

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Harvard Guide to Using Sources 

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How to Avoid Plagiarism

It's not enough to know why plagiarism is taken so seriously in the academic world or to know how to recognize it. You also need to know how to avoid it. The simplest cases of plagiarism to avoid are the intentional ones: If you copy a paper from a classmate, buy a paper from the Internet, copy whole passages from a book, article, or Web site without citing the author, you are plagiarizing. Here's the best advice you'll ever receive about avoiding intentional plagiarism: If you're tempted to borrow someone else's ideas or plagiarize in any way because you're pressed for time, nervous about how you're doing in a class, or confused about the assignment, don't do it . The problems you think you're solving by plagiarizing are really minor compared to the problems you will create for yourself by plagiarizing. In every case, the consequences of plagiarism are much more serious than the consequences of turning in a paper late or turning in a paper you're not satisfied to have written.

"...the consequences of plagiarism are much more serious than the consequences of turning in a paper late..."

The consequences of accidental plagiarism are equally daunting and should be avoided at all costs. Whether or not you intended to plagiarize, you will still be held responsible. As a member of an intellectual community you are expected to respect the ideas of others in the same way that you would respect any other property that didn't belong to you, and this is true whether you plagiarize on purpose or by accident. The best way to make sure you don't plagiarize due to confusion or carelessness is to 1) understand what you're doing when you write a paper and 2) follow a method that is systematic and careful as you do your research . In other words, if you have a clear sense of what question you're trying to answer and what knowledge you're building on, and if you keep careful, clear notes along the way, it's much easier to use sources effectively and responsibly and, most of all, to write a successful paper. If you have questions about plagiarism at any point in your research or writing process, ask. It's always better to ask questions than it is to wait for an instructor to respond to work that you have turned in for a grade. Once you have turned in your final work, you will be held responsible for misuse of sources.

With these principles in mind, here are some guidelines for conducting research responsibly:

Keep track of your sources; print electronic sources

While it's easy enough to keep a stack of books or journal articles on your desk where you can easily refer back to them, it's just as important to keep track of electronic sources. When you save a PDF of a journal article, make sure you put it into a folder on your computer where you'll be able to find it. When you consult a Web site, log the Web address in a separate document from the paper you're writing so that you'll be able to return to the Web site and cite it correctly. You should also print the relevant pages from any Web sites you use, making sure you note the complete URL and the date on which you printed the material. Because electronic sources aren't stable and Web pages can be deleted without notice, beware of directing your readers to sources that might have disappeared. Check when the Web site you're using was last updated and update the URLs as you work and once again right before you submit your essay. If an electronic source disappears before you submit your work, you will need to decide whether or not to keep the source in your paper. If you have printed the source and can turn it in with your paper, you should do so. If you have not printed the source, you should consult your instructor about whether or not to use that source in your paper.

The library has several helpful resources for managing your sources, including RefWorks .

Keep sources in correct context

Whenever you consult a source, you should make sure you understand the context, both of the ideas within a source and of the source itself. You should also be careful to consider the context in which a source was written. For example, a book of essays published by an organization with a political bias might not present an issue with adequate complexity for your project.

The question of context can be more complicated when you're working with Internet sources than with print sources because you may see one Web page as separate from an entire Web site and use or interpret that page without fully understanding or representing its context. For example, a definition of "communism" taken from a Web site with a particular political agenda might provide one interpretation of the meaning of the word—but if you neglect to mention the context for that definition you might use it as though it's unbiased when it isn't. Likewise, some Internet searches will take you to a URL that's just one Web page within a larger Web site; be sure to investigate and take notes on the context of the information you're citing.

Research can often turn out to be more time-consuming that you anticipate. Budget enough time to search for sources, to take notes, and to think about how to use the sources in your essay. Moments of carelessness are more common when you leave your essay until the last minute and are tired or stressed. Honest mistakes can lead to charges of plagiarism just as dishonesty can; be careful when note-taking and when incorporating ideas and language from electronic sources so you always know what language and ideas are yours and what belongs to a source.

Don't cut and paste: File and label your sources

Never cut and paste information from an electronic source straight into your own essay, and never type verbatim sentences from a print source straight into your essay. Instead, open a separate document on your computer for each source so you can file research information carefully. When you type or cut and paste into that document, make sure to include the full citation information for the print source or the full URL and the date you copied the page(s). For Web sources, make sure to cite the page from which you're taking information, which may not necessarily be the home page of the site you're using. Use logical and precise names for the files you create, and add citation information and dates. This allows you to retrieve the files easily, deters you from accidentally deleting files, and helps you keep a log of the order in which your research was conducted. It's a good idea to add a note to each file that describes how you might use the information in that file. Remember: you're entering a conversation with your sources, and accurate file names and notes can help you understand and engage that conversation. And, of course, always remember to back up your files.

Keep your own writing and your sources separate

Work with either the printed copy of your source(s) or (in the case of online sources), the copy you pasted into a separate document—not the online version—as you draft your essay. This precaution not only decreases the risk of plagiarism but also enables you to annotate your sources in various ways that will help you understand and use them most effectively in your essay.

Keep your notes and your draft separate

Be careful to keep your research notes separate from your actual draft at all stages of your writing process. This will ensure that you don't cut language from a source and paste it into your paper without proper attribution. If you work from your notes, you're more likely to keep track of the boundaries between your own ideas and those in a source.

Paraphrase carefully in your notes; acknowledge your sources explicitly when paraphrasing

When you want to paraphrase material, it's a good idea first to paste the actual quotation into your notes (not directly into your draft) and then to paraphrase it (still in your notes). Putting the information in your own words will help you make sure that you've thought about what the source is saying and that you have a good reason for using it in your paper. Remember to use some form of notation in your notes to indicate what you've paraphrased and mention the author's name within the material you paraphrase. You should also include all citation information in your notes.

When you decide to use paraphrased material in your essay, make sure that you avoid gradually rewording the paraphrased material from draft to draft until you lose sight of the fact that it's still a paraphrase. Also, avoid excessive paraphrasing in which your essay simply strings together a series of paraphrases. When the ideas taken from your sources start to blend in deceptively with your own thinking, you will have a more difficult time maintaining the boundaries between your ideas and those drawn from sources. Finally, whenever you paraphrase, make sure you indicate, at each logical progression, that the ideas are taken from an authored source.

Avoid reading a classmate's paper for inspiration

If you're in a course that requires peer review or workshops of student drafts, you are going to read your classmates' work and discuss it. This is a productive way of exchanging ideas and getting feedback on your work. If you find, in the course of this work, that you wish to use someone else's idea at some point in your paper (you should never use someone else's idea as your thesis, but there may be times when a classmate's idea would work as a counterargument or other point in your paper), you must credit that person the same way you would credit any other source. On the other hand, if you find yourself reading someone else's paper because you're stuck on an assignment and don't know how to proceed, you may end up creating a problem for yourself because you might unconsciously copy that person's ideas. When you're stuck, make an appointment with your instructor or go to the Writing Center for advice on how to develop your own ideas.

Don't save your citations for later

Never paraphrase or quote from a source without immediately adding a citation. You should add citations in your notes, in your response papers, in your drafts, and in your revisions. Without them, it's too easy to lose track of where you got a quotation or an idea and to end up inadvertently taking credit for material that's not your own.

Quote your sources properly

Always use quotation marks for directly quoted material, even for short phrases and key terms.

Keep a source trail

As you write and revise your essay, make sure that you keep track of your sources in your notes and in each successive draft of your essay. You should begin this process early, even before you start writing your draft. Even after you've handed in your essay, keep all of your research notes and drafts. You ought to be able to reconstruct the path you took from your sources to your notes and from your notes to your drafts and revision. These careful records and clear boundaries between your writing and your sources will help you avoid plagiarism. And if you are called upon to explain your process to your instructor, you'll be able to retrace the path you took when thinking, researching, and writing, from the essay you submitted back through your drafts and to your sources.

Denying the accusation of plagiarism: power relations at play in dictating plagiarism as academic misconduct

• Published: 28 May 2022
• Volume 85 , pages 979–997, ( 2023 )

Cite this article

• Idhamsyah Eka Putra   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5371-7273 1 , 2 ,
• Nur Inda Jazilah 3 ,
• Made Syanesti Adishesa 4 ,
• Dhia Al Uyun 5 &
• Herlambang Perdana Wiratraman 6  

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In academia, plagiarism is considered detrimental to the advancement of sciences, and the plagiarists can be charged with sanctions. However, the plagiarism cases involving three rectors of universities in Indonesia stand out, as they could defend their stand for not committing academic misconduct despite evidence found. By analyzing the three rectors’ cases, the present study aims to answer how power relations take a role in plagiarism discourse in Indonesia, particularly in determining what is considered academic misconduct and what is not. By employing critical discourse analysis, we found that when the accusation of plagiarism appears during rectorial elections, the accused could equivocate that the accusation was meant to undermine them as a political opponent. When the accused plagiarists win the election, they have more power to deny and tackle the accusations of plagiarism. The findings indicate that plagiarism issues can be politicized, in which by those in power it can be used as a tool to undermine their political opponents, whereas the accused plagiarists can claim that the actual problem is personal and not about plagiarism. It is also shown that in the real context, whether something is called plagiarism or not is subject to interpretation by those in power.

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Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

In academia, plagiarism is considered an academic misconduct and a major ethical concern by deliberately using someone else’s intellectual property or data as one’s own, without acknowledgment such as citing the sources of the data (East 2010 ). Often, it is viewed as “a form of intellectual theft” (Ashworth et al. 1997 , p. 200). There is a consensus among scholars that plagiarism is detrimental to the advancement of scientific research since it blurs the line between new findings and replications (Dougherty 2020 ; East 2010 ; Weber-Wulff 2014 ). In consequence, those who are found to commit plagiarism may face suspension or dismissal from the institution.

De jure , Indonesia is one of the countries that impose a strict rule regarding plagiarism, in which it can be charged as a criminal act with a maximum imprisonment of two years and/or a maximum fine of two hundred thousand Indonesian Rupiah, as stated in The Law No. 20 of 2003 on National Education System (Article 70; see Akbar & Picard 2019 ). Nonetheless de facto, there have been accused plagiarists who were not charged with formal sanctions (in detail, see the “Plagiarism in Indonesia” section). Recently, three rectors of different public universities were accused of plagiarism (Tempo 2021 ). All three denied the misconduct, and up until now, they have not faced any formal punishment, despite factual evidence found. In fact, such accusations did not prevent them from being appointed as rectors by the Ministry of Education (hereafter the Ministry). Footnote 1

While there have been research reporting who were and were not given formal sanctions for academic misconduct (Horbach et al. 2019 ), how those in power deny the accusation of misconduct and maintain their reputation is still understudied. Using critical discourse analysis (CDA) as an approach, the present study aims to examine plagiarism cases of the three rectors and how power relations and rhetorical arguments of what can be called as plagiarism are used to deny the accusations.

Plagiarism around the world; its cases and historical debates

Historically, plagiarism is defined by Englisch ( 1933 ) as a “conscious decision” to claim someone else’s work as our own. Interestingly, Englisch himself was later accused of plagiarism and said such a definition would exempt him from plagiarism (Weber-Wulff 2014 ), as he was not aware of his misconduct. Therefore, an obvious limitation to this definition was the apparent emphasis on plagiarism as a deliberate act. One may claim to unknowingly commit plagiarism and thus receive little to no repercussions. This is evident in the case of Franziska Giffey who allegedly plagiarized in her dissertation, in which “49 of 265 pages included unattributed quotes and copying-pasting from other works” (DW 2021 ). Giffey’s official statement on her case was that she “remain adamant that I wrote my thesis to the best of my belief.” She also added “I regret it if I made mistakes in this,” implying the conditional nature of any ethical mistakes that had occurred. Although striped of her doctorate, Giffey remained active in politics to this day.

Currently, with the help of software, plagiarism detection has become easier to do; although more subtle forms of plagiarism are still difficult to detect. For example, stealing ideas without acknowledgement in an academic context can happen through paraphrasing another’s argument and presenting another’s line of thinking (Gibaldi 2003 ). One can argue that there is only a limited way to convey an idea; thus, it is inevitable that some sentences sound alike. Consequently, in some cases, it is difficult to unequivocally determine whether an argument is a stolen idea from learned sources or mere coincidental similarity.

In addition, it is commonly known that if the academic work has 100 percent similarity to other people’s work, one must be a plagiary. But it is still debatable whether 10 percent, 20 percent, or 30 percent of similarity is the lowest percentage of tolerance. Hence, several key issues remained to be solved in regard to what constitutes plagiarism.

Unsurprisingly, people may be tempted to use plagiarism as a quick way to obtain a prestigious post. This is commonly found in a competitive field, where high scholastic achievement is seen as a proof of expertise. This is certainly evident in the case of plagiarism by a person in a position of power. A notorious example is the former German Defense Minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, who in 2011 was found to have heavily plagiarized his dissertation. It contained various types of plagiarism, such as taking a word-for-word copy of a passage and degrading it as a footnote/bibliography/appendix, or copying a text then disguising it with minor changes. When zu Guttenberg downplayed the extent of his plagiarism, the German public worked collaboratively to expose it and found about 94% of the dissertation contained plagiarism (Weber-Wulff 2014 ). As a result, he lost his doctorate and resigned as minister.

The case of plagiarism becomes even more complicated when it is done to one’s own work, namely self-plagiarism. One common form of self-plagiarism is salami slicing, in which results of a study were deliberately divided (or “sliced”) into several publications (Martin 2013 ). This may result in redundant publications, as the author would have to repeat several phrases or reuse some parts of the previous publication. Thus, the line between poor academic practice and intentionally misleading the readers as to the originality of the writing can be rather ambiguous and open to interpretation.

One controversial case of self-plagiarism involved a prominent economic scientist in the Netherlands, Peter Nijkamp, and his doctoral student (Horbach & Halffman 2019 ; Horbach et al. 2020 ). A large part of the doctoral thesis was found to be recycled from other works of Nijkamp, without proper citations. This case led to a fierce debate on how self-plagiarism can be considered wrong, as in an academic misconduct. Nijkamp himself denied the accusation of self-plagiarism and until his retirement he was never charged as guilty (Horbach et al. 2020 ).

In terms of cultural factors, it was previously thought that plagiarism might be more prevalent in collectivist culture where knowledge could be considered common properties for public use. To illustrate, students from Asian backgrounds may use the phrase “It is said that…” without referring to any specific author (Martin 2011 ). However, recent studies suggest it was in fact individualists who plagiarize more than collectivists (Kasler et al. 2021 ; Martin 2011 ). This may be due to strong emphasis on self-interest in individualism, which in highly competitive fields could stimulate people to cut corners for the sake of gaining advantage. An implication of this finding is the possibility that even in collectivistic countries, fierce competition may increase individualistic tendencies and encourage self-serving behavior such as plagiarism. This can be seen in the infamous plagiarism case of several Chinese government officials (The Straits Times 2019 ). There were prominent officials who held high positions, such as Supreme Court judges, former top public security officials, and former vice-president who were found to plagiarize. In China, de jure , there will be sanctions given when someone is found for plagiarism. Interestingly, to this date, none of the Chinese officials was punished for their academic misconduct (The Straits Times 2019 ).

In Indonesian academic environment, plagiarism can also be a tempting shortcut in fulfilling the demands of obligations as a researcher. With the government’s target to improve the quality of higher education, there is higher pressure for lecturers in Indonesia to obtain a doctorate (Kyrychenko 2018 ) and to produce as many scientific papers as possible in international journals. Nonetheless, despite attention to academic misconduct and integrity has increased, we see that such cases in Indonesia have not been seriously handled. We will explain in detail about plagiarism in Indonesia in the following part.

Plagiarism in Indonesia

One early plagiarism case in Indonesia that triggered fierce debates among litterateurs came from a classic novel titled Tenggelamnya Kapal van Der Wijck (The Sinking of the van der Wijck Ship; first published in 1938/1976) written by Abdul Malik Karim Amrullah or popularly known as Hamka. Of its popularity, the novel has been re-printed many times. In 1962, the novel was criticized for its similar plots to Sous les Tilleuls (Under the Limes; 1832/2016) written by Alphonse Karr. Hamka never responded to the accusation and decided to stay silent. Nonetheless, there were prominent litterateurs who defended Hamka. One of them was H. B. Jassin ( 1967 ), who claimed that in terms of socio-cultural context, the story is different; thus, it cannot be categorized as plagiarism. Regardless of the debate, in 2013, The Sinking of the van der Wijck Ship was adapted into a movie, and it became the highest grossing movie of 2013 in Indonesia. Footnote 2

Other than the case of Hamka’s novel, there have been other cases of plagiarism involving public/prominent figures which were exposed by the news media (Partikelir 2011 ; Tempo 2014 ). Among others, for example, is the case of plagiarism found on Amir Santoso. He was accused of hijacking scientific works from his colleagues and students. Consequently, his doctoral degree was stripped by the University of Indonesia. What is interesting is the case of Yahya Muhaimin, in which his doctoral thesis was found to be similar to several scientific papers. Nonetheless, after about ten years from the case, Muhaimin was appointed as the Indonesian Minister of Education from 1999 to 2001.

Also notable is the recent plagiarism case of five doctoral students supervised by Djaali, who was a rector of Jakarta State University (Sumandoyo 2017 ). Because of a plagiarism and corruption scandal, Djaali was removed from his position as a rector in 2018 (Rosser 2022 ). All accusations were denied by Djaali, and he claimed that he did not do any wrongdoing. To the plagiarism case of his doctoral students, Djaali stood by his position that nothing is wrong with all five doctoral theses. However, despite indications of plagiarism found, no penalty or sanctions have been charged. Instead, they were given a chance to prepare a new doctoral thesis. Most of the students accused were high-ranking local governance administrative officials; therefore, it is difficult not to speculate why they were given special treatment. Next, we present how power plays a key role in shaping opinions.

Critical discourse analysis and its use to understand how knowledge/opinion is built

We employ our analytical lens through critical discourse analysis (CDA; Van Dijk 1993 ) that focuses on examining “between discourse, power, dominance, and social inequality and the position of the discourse analyst in such social relationships” (p. 283). What we mean as discourse is spoken or discussion topics that are situated and action-oriented within a certain social context (Van Dijk 2000 ). It is situated because how a topic is discussed is connected to the context that links to some kind of sequence of interactions (Potter & Edwards 2001 ). It is action-oriented, because people share things to others, through their specific ways, guided by their understanding, norms, and perceptions (Potter & Edwards 2001 ).

Through CDA, the analysis will be beyond the content of the arguments or talks. The relationship between the locutors’ characteristics (e.g., socioeconomic background and social status) and the social context in which the arguments and talks are delivered (who the recipient/audience is, what mode/method of communication is used, what the topic is) will also be the central of investigations (Wodak and Meyer 2001 ).

By using CDA as an approach, the subject of the study is also seen as an active agent. For example, in seeing people accused of academic misconduct as active agents, we can learn how they deal with the accusation. Often, students are seen as those who are highly vulnerable to academic misconduct. Hence, they are monitored more frequently for plagiarism compared to faculty staff, like lecturers and researchers (Gullifer & Tyson 2014 ; Nilsson et al. 2009 ). When they are found for academic misconducts such as plagiarism, despite having no room for evasion, students might claim that they did not know what they did was considered plagiarism. In this case, the end of the investigation can be varied. Regardless of excuses claimed by the students, if they are still considered thieves, harsh sanctions may be applied. However, if they are considered learners (Nilsson et al. 2009 ), in which students are seen as still in the learning stage, then light sanctions may be applied.

In the case of scientists or lecturers, fierce debates between the accused and the accusers for academic misconduct are commonly found. Often, their status as faculty members are perceived as the main source of understanding on academic misconduct like plagiarism and cheating (Gullifer & Tyson 2014 ). The phenomenon of replication crisis in psychology research (Hagger et al. 2016 ; Klein 2014 ) exemplifies this. Numerous research in psychology failed to be replicated, in which many of those are accused of data fabrication. Amy Cuddy, a social psychologist who became famous after her TED talk went viral, is one example of scientists struggling to defend their research from accusations of misconduct. Cuddy’s study about power posing (Carney et al. 2010 ) was accused for p-hacking Footnote 3 as by other researchers, the experiment failed to replicate (Dominus 2017 ). However, Cuddy stood by her position that she and her team have done a proper and adequate method in which it had gone through a rigorous peer-review process (Dominus 2017 ). As we know, this case is still debatable (Elsesser 2020 ), and up until now, the study about power posing (Carney et al. 2010 ) is still in publication by Psychological Science (i.e., it is not retracted).

Things, however, will be different in the case of plagiarism, especially when the evidence of plagiarism is valid and legit. We can see it in the case of two computer scientists, Visvanathan and Lushington (Bavley 2014 ). Not just one, but three articles by them had been found to be lifted from other works. Visvanathan ignored the plagiarism concerns, whereas Lushington knew it was plagiarism, but he still got the articles published. Nonetheless, both were detected for plagiarism and found to be committed the misconduct of plagiarism.

Little is known, however, how lecturers or scientists deny and successfully tackle the accusation of plagiarism. We argue that this may be related to the cultural context where social status determines the use of power.

Discourse, culture, and power

Hofstede (see Hofstede 2001 ; Hofstede & McCrae 2004 ) and Triandis ( 2001 ) introduced types of cultural dimensions that are found across societies globally. According to them, these types of cultural dimensions may influence people to develop a certain mindset and behaviors (see Markus & Hamedani 2007 ). For instance, Indonesia is known as a society that focuses more on group/collective interest than personal/individual interest, and compared to other countries, Indonesia adopts a higher degree of power distance and inequality. This means that social status is hierarchical and can determine those who are in power or not. In everyday interactions, those in power direct the conversation, tend to be listened to (i.e., signifier) than listening (i.e., signified/recipient); they perceive to be superior than others who are perceived as inferior. People in lower status are motivated to conform with authority. Rarely social status in Indonesia is derived from merit.

It is important to note that we consider culture as subject to change, in which such cultural dimensions of power distance and inequality are not fixed. Nonetheless, in the context we presently study, we see that power, as in those in high status, play a role in dictating what can be called as plagiarism and whether it is (categorized as) an academic misconduct. In this regard, we argue that such understanding about plagiarism can play a role in how plagiarism is defined and conceptualized.

In every higher education institution, faculty staff are demanded to understand academic ethics and academic misconduct as, by the students, they will be placed as the main sources of understanding (East 2010 ). Unfortunately, however, the understanding capacity is found to be varied. Such limited understanding about academic misconduct may be prevalent in non-Western countries, where scholars are not groomed properly for academic publications.

A study conducted by Khathayut and Walker-Gleaves ( 2021 ) about the understanding of plagiarism at a university in Thailand found that many lecturers have limited understanding and low awareness of plagiarism. This will affect how the university sees plagiarism, whether it is considered a serious problem, and how it takes action to handle it. In this case, without a doubt, sufficient action will not take place.

In Indonesia, universities are understood as a place where smart people with their expertise gather, the kind of people who are usually asked for advice or to serve as high-ranking government officials such as a minister (McRae & Robet 2020 ). Most state universities are among the best universities. More often, the position of rector in state universities is occupied by a high-ranking academic faculty member such as a professor or senior lecturer (equivalent to associate professor). Thus, in a university, a rector is highly regarded and respected not just as the top education management but also as an academia, and their influence can even be beyond the area of academia. Hence, it is not surprising for a rector to be connected to political elites (Mudhoffir 2017 ) or appointed as a commissioner of state-owned enterprises.

In our understanding, the rectorate also plays a key role in determining moral reasoning of what is good or bad, and right or wrong. In one case, an academic member who criticized the Indonesian president ended up being accused of insulting the president, and in consequence, he was discharged from any teaching role (Farasonalia 2020 ).

Given the power status of the rectors and their power to dictate what is considered academic misconduct, fierce debates regarding the accusation of plagiarism toward a rector may happen if he/she denies the accusation. They may try to find ways to defend their position as not guilty and maintain their reputation. Potentially, the accusations can be countered by claiming that it is a black campaign to ruin their reputation. In the present study, we will analyze this case.

Overview of the present study: three examples of how people could deny the accusation of plagiarism in Indonesia

We limit the study to analyze plagiarism cases involving three rectors, as well as full professors, of public state universities in Indonesia: Fathur Rokhman (FR), Muryanto Amin (MA), and Muhammad Zamrun Firihu (MZF).

FR is an acting rector of Universitas Negeri Semarang (UNNES), located in Central Java province, since 2014. His education background and academic expertise is sociolinguistics. MA was just appointed as the rector of Universitas Negeri Sumatera Utara located in Medan, North Sumatra, in January 2021. His educational background and expertise is political science. MZF has been the acting rector of Halu Oleo University (UHO) located in Kendari, Southeast Sulawesi, since July 2017, and he was re-elected in 2021. His educational background and expertise is physics.

All three universities are one of the best in each province. The rectors were recently accused of committing plagiarism, but they managed to deny the accusations. Although plagiarism cases are commonly found among lecturers or faculty members in Indonesia, the three rectors’ cases stand out because not only did they deny the accusations, they were also able to tackle it and defend their claim of not committing academic misconduct, despite evidence found.

Hence, the present study aims to answer how power relations and the understanding of plagiarism and academic misconduct take a role in plagiarism discourse in Indonesia. Additionally, we also seek to understand how accused plagiarists managed to deny the accusations despite the evidence found, and what rhetorical arguments they used to defend themselves.

Data sources

Our primary data were obtained from open source data on the Internet such as online news media and investigative reports conducted by the university’s ethics committee, the Indonesian Ombudsman, Tempo Magazine, and the monograph by Kaukus Indonesia Untuk Kebebasan Akademik (KIKA; The Indonesian Caucus for Academic Freedom). All sources used took issues related to the accusation of plagiarism conducted by the three rectors: FR, MA, and MZF.

First, except the report from KIKA, the second and fourth authors searched data sources related to the issues raised through Google Search. All collected data, then, were stored in Google Drive. Afterward, the third and first authors selected the data sources and used only the ones that could provide more evidence, such as direct statements from the three rectors and the accusers. Finally, all data used were moved and are available in the Open Science Framework at https://s.id/DataForPlagiarism .

In the present study, the focus of the analysis is the discourse on plagiarism, with which it does not attempt to find evidence for plagiarism indication. Particularly, through CDA (Van Dijk 2000 ; Wodak and Meyer 2001 ), our concern was to investigate the ways the three rectors denied the accusation of plagiarism and how they attempted to divert the issue that it is a black campaign to ruin their reputation.

As such, to understand the discourse, other than analyzing statements from the rectors, we also analyzed reported statements from other parties: political rivals, faculty members who accused or defended the rectors, ethics committee, the Directorate General of Higher Education, the Indonesian Ombudsman, and KIKA. Hence, we could analyze how one argument countered another.

Additionally, in order to understand the process of the events on why and how the accusations of plagiarism emerged and were then denied, the findings are reported in chronological ways. In doing so, we can identify why and how the accused developed counter arguments and gained supporters, even though solid evidence was found. In the “ Findings ” section below, we present extracts selected as examples of evidence.

In this part, we report the three cases of plagiarism separately, starting with the case of FR.

Case 1: Fathur Rokhman Footnote 4

The accusation of plagiarism toward FR could not be separated from the 2014 rectorial election at Universitas Negeri Semarang (UNNES) where the rivalry between FR and Supriadi Rustad (SR) started. The two reported each other to the police: FR reported SR for document falsification while SR reported FR for perpetrating a hoax on SR’s employment status.

In the 2018 UNNES rectorial election, accusation of plagiarism toward FR arose, for his doctoral thesis at Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM); FR received his doctorate in 2003. At that time, FR was the acting rector of UNNES. Serat.id was the first online media that exposed the case to the public, reporting that Evaluasi Kajian Akademik (EKA; The Academic Performance Evaluation), a team which was developed by the Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education (hereafter the Ministry), Footnote 5 had found evidence. Footnote 6 Nonetheless, FR accused Serat.id to be in alliance with SR since the office of Serat.id is located in the neighborhood of the Dian Nuswantoro University, where SR is affiliated with. FR suspected there was a political motive behind the accusation, as SR had been the head of EKA since 2015 even though the team handling FR’s case was led by another person. Footnote 7

This was denied by SR, and SR even claimed that her wife and daughter were threatened by FR’s staff.

I think FR continuously threatens my wife, daughter, and the university I’m affiliated with. My old friends also said that they have also been investigated. (SR, taken from supriadirustad.wordpress.com, 2018) (See in detail all extracts with Indonesian and English version in Supplementary 1 )

Of this enmity between FR, SR, and the EKA team, on October 6, 2018, the Ministry announced that FR could not be charged of committing plagiarism, even though similarities were found. The primary reasons were that, first, FR’s work accused of plagiarism was written in 2002; and second, plagiarism was just formally regulated in 2010 in the Regulation of the Minister of Education ( Permendiknas ) No. 17/2010. Hence, according to the Ministry, despite the case raised in 2018, the plagiarism case of FR is deemed to appear before the rule about plagiarism was regulated, as stated:

I would have laid the rectors off if they were found to commit plagiarism from 2010 and up. Fathur should not be a plagiarist, since the case was not in 2010 (i.e., before the regulation). (The Minister M. Nasir, taken from Antara news, 2018)

The case of FR continued and a complaint about the slow investigation was filed to the Indonesian Ombudsman. In 2019, the Ombudsman issued a press release stating that based on their investigation, there was maladministration (abuse of authority, incompetence, and inappropriate action of destroying evidence) found. As stated:

The Ombudsman has conducted a series of investigations and found maladministration in handling the case of plagiarism. The findings of maladministration by the Ombudsman. (Ombudsman Indonesia, taken from Ombudsman.go.id, 2019)

Interestingly, FR stated “these are evidence that can refute the accusation of plagiarism towards me.” FR then presented some documents, Footnote 8 where during his disposition defense in front of the Ombudsman’s investigators (2000 dissertation draft) he reported that it had been destroyed.

In response to the case, the Ethics Committee of UGM (DKU) developed an ad hoc investigation team. On March 9, 2020, DKU announced that FR did indeed commit plagiarism and they recommended revoking his doctoral title. Footnote 9 But again, FR denied the accusation.

Surprisingly, rather than supporting the findings of the DKU team, the rector of UGM appointed four experts to provide other opinions and legal advice relating to the law of evidence and intellectual property rights. The experts concluded that FR did not plagiarize and that the DKU findings were invalid for not considering the 2000 dissertation draft. This is in contrast to Tempo magazine’s investigation that presented two striking findings; a reference to a 2001 book while the draft was supposedly written in 2000, and a page printed using a laser printer, a technology invented after 2000. Footnote 10

Furthermore, in 2020, KIKA also conducted an in-depth research on the case, emphasizing on (1) FR’s attempts to cover his plagiarism and (2) perspectives on plagiarism as a crime and academic ethics violation. As a response, the Head of Public Relations of UNNES stated that KIKA’s accusation was not evidence-based and questioned who KIKA is, and what their motivations are.

Who is KIKA? For what purpose? What interest? Also, what are KIKA’s motivations to make such a statement? (Head of Public Relations of UNNES, taken from Tempo.co, 2021 )

This statement emphasized that the case has moved from personal issue to collective issue, in which FR is at least supported by the rectorate team.

Additionally, FR stated that such irresponsible accusation should not be the main focus during the pandemic, as he states:

Ignore that irresponsible issue. It will subside. We now focus on our concern for the Covid-19 pandemic and help the government for economic recovery as well as prepare UNNES for the PT BH. (FR, taken from Suarakarya.id, 2021)

FR also claimed that it is all clear, based on the UGM rector’s decision, that there is no plagiarism found. As this article is written, FR is still the acting rector at UNNES, and the case seems to be intentionally abandoned as there are no further actions from both UGM and the Ministry.

Case 2: Muryanto Amin Footnote 11

The controversy of MA’s case commenced after he was elected as the rector of the Universitas Sumatera Utara (USU) on December 3, 2020. The previous USU rector, Runtung Sitepu (RS), claimed to have received a complaint from the USU faculty members about four almost identical articles, one in Indonesian and three in English, published in different journals. RS decided to investigate the case by establishing an ad hoc team.

The team investigated four of MA’s articles, with Jonner Hasugian (a lecturer on Library Science) as the team leader. The investigation team used a scientific method by quantifying similarities, and they found similarities between the articles. JH states:

There was an article published in three different journals. When we investigate, there was one that had been published in Indonesian, then was translated to English and published again. (JH, taken from Kumparan.com, 2021)

The investigation led to the issuance of rectorate letter no. 82/UN51/R/SK/KPM/2021 on January 14, 2021 announcing that MA was found to commit self-plagiarism.

Of this issue, MA’s spokesperson asserted “All the accusations of plagiarism could not be proven […] it is all the Ministry’s decision.” Surprisingly, in opposition to rector RS, three vice rectors of USU instead accused RS as the one who did plagiarism. One of the vice rectors questioned the legality of the investigation team as they were not asked to discuss.

What the rector followed up on, seems like something not official. [...] Runtung Sitepu formed an ethics commision without involving vice rectors I, II, and V. If this is important, we should have been involved. We don’t even know the people in the investigation team. So we see that the impartiality is questionable. (Vice Rector Rosmayati Tanjung, taken from Mediaindonesia.com, 2021)

Moreover, through his clarification letter to Media Indonesia news outlet, MA admits that he did commit self-plagiarism as he stated that “the journal is a part of my doctoral dissertation in the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Indonesia” but he defended that self-plagiarism is not acknowledged by the American Political Science Association (APSA). He also stated that:

[…] Self-plagiarism and double publications were not regulated yet in the Regulation of the Ministry of Education 17/2010. (MA, taken from Mediaindonesia.com, 2021)

Interestingly, the Ministry decided that MA did not commit any plagiarism as written in the letter:

For legal certainty and accountability for the implementation of the Tridharma of Higher Education at USU, it is necessary to revoke Rector’s Decree no. 82/UN5.1.R/SK/ KPM/2021 about sanctions for violations of norms, academic ethics, and morals, on behalf of Dr. Muryanto Amin in the case of plagiarism. (The Minister Nadiem Makarim, taken from medcom.id, 2021)

Additionally, the acting head of Directorate General of Higher Education, Nizam, also stated that it is not self-plagiarism; instead it is considered as re-publishing in different outlets and publishers.

In Muryanto’s case, what is happening is the republishing of his own work. And the publication is on the principle of open access, which means the copyright is still owned by the author, so there’s no copyright infringement [...] Infringement happens if we give up the copyright to the publisher of the journal, and then we publish it again in another journal. (Nizam, taken from Tempo.co, 2021 )

Based on the letter, MA was considerably innocent and is still currently the acting rector of USU.

On the other hand, based on Tempo’s investigation, MA was found to be closely related to the regime’s circle including the current President’s son in law. MA is said to be one of the political consultants for the President’s son in law during the mayoral election in Medan. Footnote 12

Case 3: Muhammad Zamrun Firihu Footnote 13

The plagiarism case of MZF also appeared during the rectorial election. However, different from the two cases above, the plagiarism case of MZF, the rector of Halu Oleo University (UHO), occurred twice: during the 2017 and 2021 rectorial election.

In July 2017, the case first sparked when thirty professors of UHO, who stood against MZF and were supporters of his opponent, stated:

MZF’s works were analyzed using Checker software and Turnitin where many similarities between MZF’s works and others’ works were found. It is also found that the MZF’s works did not comply with the writing conventions as regulated in the Regulation of the Minister of Education No. 17/2010 on Preventions and Countermeasures for Plagiarism in Universities. (the Professors, taken from Rakyatsultra.com, 2021)

The professors also reported the case to the Minister, leading to a team being established to investigate the case further. The accusation was denied by MZF, as the investigation conducted by the team from the Directorate General of Higher Education found that MZF did not commit plagiarism. He states:

[…] It is all done. But they were not satisfied with the Ministry’s investigation, and a number of professors reported it to the Ombudsman. I also went there as a defendant, and explained everything there. The Ministry’s team explained repeatedly. (MZF, taken from Inisultra.com, 2021)

In this case, the Ministry’s team did indeed claim that they did not find any plagiarism issue, and then MZF was inaugurated as a rector, officiated by the Directorate General Ali Ghufron Mukti. Concerning this issue, the thirty UHO professors reported the case to the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman found that MZF did plagiarize with 72% similarities, which served as a basis for their recommendation to revoke MZF’s title and remove him from his position as the UHO rector.

The Ombudsman also claimed that the inauguration was vulnerable to maladministration. It is mainly because during the rectorial election, there might have been partiality from the Minister at the time Footnote 14 and possibly a cooperation between the Ministry and Senate. Footnote 15 The Ombudsman also continuously observed the issue during the 2017 election. However, the case was declared solved when a team established by the Ministry concluded that MZF did not commit any plagiarism, as they stated in their Minutes of Meeting no. 1891–1/02/HK/2017 on July 14, 2017.

Conclusion: it cannot be categorized as plagiarism […] To draw the conclusion, the team emphasized more on the substance and contributions of the articles written by MZF. Specifically in science, technology, and medical, textual similarities do not always mean plagiarism. It should be emphasized more on the works produced or its contributions to the development of science. (The Ministry team, taken from Inisultra.com, 2021)

MZF also said that it is impossible for the Ministry to protect and inaugurate him as the university rector if he is guilty, as he expressed:

Well, maybe because the upcoming rectorial election is near. But I have to emphasize that until today I am still the rector of UHO, and my title has never been revoked. The Ministry would not keep me if I'm guilty. (MZF, taken from Haluanrakyat.com, 2021)

Again, in the 2021 rectorial election, MZF’s plagiarism recurred, as reported by one UHO professor on March 5, 2021. Unlike in the 2017 rectorial election where MZF won, in the 2021 election, the Directorate General wrote a letter to the UHO Senate, stating that MZF was not qualified to be a candidate in the 2021 election due to his plagiarism scandals. Footnote 16 In a letter dated April 15, 2021, signed by the Directorate General, it is written that MZF failed to qualify during the selection of rector candidacy. The recommendation in the letter was based on the review and analysis by the Fact Finding Team, concluding that MZF has committed plagiarism; and as a consequence, the Directorate General requested the Senate to follow up the recommendation.

However, an ad hoc team, consisting of UHO lecturers who hold structural positions under MZF as the rector, was established to investigate the case, as one of the team members stated:

The Senate must investigate the case further, whether the Ministry’s investigation results are valid. The results of the two investigations should be compared side by side later. (Senate members’ representative, taken from Indosultra.com, 2021)

This ad hoc team and the Senate then concluded that MZF did not commit any plagiarism, leading to MZF winning the selection of rector candidates. The chief of the Senate stated:

So, we Senate agreed on giving a clarification on the plagiarism case to the Directorate General of Higher Education. We also provide MZF a chance to clarify. (Chief of Senate, taken from Sultra.Tribunnews.com, 2021)

MZF also suspected that there was a political issue behind this as the accusation of plagiarism appeared during a rectorial election, as he claimed that his publication has been going through expert judgment.

In the process of writing and publishing a journal article, what is assessed is similarity, and this needs expert judgment. In the Regulation of the Ministry of Education no. 17/2000, which is the reference for the Ombudsman to issue the recommendation, article 11 stated that plagiarism issues should be handled by the university’s senate. (MZF, taken from Sultrakini.com, 2021)

Interestingly, despite the fact that the Directorate General has sent a letter to the Senate stating that MZF did plagiarize, and that the 30 professors as well as the Ombudsman found similarities between MZF’s work and other people’s works, MZF was still elected to be the UHO rector for 2021–2025. This indicates that the ad hoc team and the UHO Senate neglected the (previous) existing report and findings.

The present study analyzing the case of three rectors accused of plagiarism has provided explanations on how plagiarism issues shifted to political disputes in a university. Such cases emerged during rectorial elections in which the accused plagiarists countered that the accusation was meant to undermine them as political opponents. When those accused of plagiarism won the election, they gained an even more powerful position to deny and counter the accusations.

It has been known that conflicts in academic environments are common (Hearn & Anderson 2002 ). This can be because of differences in scientific perspectives, competition disputes for faculty promotion and tenure, or managerial positions. Nonetheless, to the best of our knowledge, it is rarely found in the political contest of rectorial elections. What is interesting is, in our case, the discursive strategy (Wodak and Meyer 2001 ) to counter the accusation of plagiarism during an election is claiming it as a black campaign. Hence, the topic shifted from academic issues to political issues, in which it is not about academic integrity, but about whether the accuser hated the accused.

In discussing about whistle blowers in academia (Stroebe et al. 2012 ), a study conducted by Horbach et al. ( 2020 ) have demonstrated that senior scientists tended to report indications of academic misconduct compared to those in junior positions. It is also the case we raised. What is different in Indonesia, however, are the issues of academic misconduct used by senior faculty members as a tool to damage their political opponent’ reputations. Thus, in this case, indications of academic misconduct will be reported only when it can give political benefit.

In our present findings, we also see that the case of plagiarism involving disputes among powerful members of academia will rely on who is the winner and who has more dominance, which can determine whether or not the accusation of plagiarism is a tool of propaganda. Among the accused, other than used to counter the accusation, denial arguments are found to be useful strategies to maintain a positive image (Augoustinos & Every,  2007 ; Putra et al.,  2021 ). Here in our study, the power relations can play a substantial role in dictating plagiarism issues. The accused can claim that there is nothing wrong in their work, and the dispute is merely political.

Likewise, when we link the Indonesian case of the three rectors with the case in China where its government officials were not punished for plagiarism (The Straits Times 2019 ) or the case in the Netherlands where a university did not take any measure against a prominent economic scientist for the accusation of self-plagiarism (Horbach et al. 2019 ), we can understand that who can be punished or not can be determined by power relations. In the Indonesian case, not only can they deny the accusation, those who are in power can even determine what can be called plagiarism and whether it is considered an academic misconduct.

Regarding the role of the Directorate General of Higher Education and the Minister of Education in addressing plagiarism issues of the three rectors, it is difficult not to speculate that they are not neutral, that their positioning is to defend the accused. In Indonesia, a rector of a state university is appointed by the minister, including the three rectors we analyzed. The case of MA blatantly shows that the government authority is not neutral. Instead of stating that they condemn self-plagiarism, they claimed that self-plagiarism has not been regulated in the present rules. This is not even to mention the neglect of the poor quality of the publications. Hence, the case of MA has extended the problems on what scale of self-plagiarism is considered academic misconduct (see Horbach & Halffman 2019 ).

The case of FR is an example of how powerful a rector is in Indonesia. FR received his doctorate from UGM. There was an ethics committee investigating FR’s case and they found an indication of plagiarism in FR’s doctoral thesis. Nonetheless, the rector of UGM formed a new investigation team under his command, and this team refuted the findings of the ethics committee, stating that there were no violations found in FR’s doctoral thesis. The rector of UGM used this finding as the basis to state that FR is not guilty, neglecting other evidence from other investigations.

We have explained that there have been cases where accused plagiarists did not receive any formal punishment. This can be because the university did not take serious attention in handling the plagiarism issue (Khathayut and Walker-Gleaves 2021 ). In regard to Djaali’s five doctoral students (Rosser 2022 ; Sumandoyo 2017 ), they were even given a chance to rewrite the doctoral thesis. This is an indication that, in Indonesia, despite having a strict rule regarding plagiarism, punishment can be avoided. In fact, the three cases we raised also exemplify that in the hands of a powerful person, accusation of plagiarism can be diverted as a feud between two groups, the group of the accused and the accuser. It becomes us versus them. Likewise, denial arguments were expressed not just by the accused plagiarists but also by those who stood by them. The conflicting sides raced to gain support, to convince that they are on the right side. To the best of our knowledge, this case is relatively novel and has not been considered by previous investigations of plagiarism (see East 2010 ; Kaposi & Dell 2012 ; Nilsson et al. 2009 ).

It is known that Indonesian society focuses more on the collective where a social status can determine superiority. However, we cannot claim that the findings of the present study are merely influenced by Indonesia’s cultural context without other factors at play. Further studies investigating in different cultural contexts may help enrich the plagiarism issue and how it relates to culture and power. It will also be comparably interesting to investigate rectors who find similar accusations, fight to deny it, but are finally charged with sanctions. In doing so, further studies may be able to investigate how a rector, or other people in power, can and cannot avoid a sanction.

Moreover, in many places, plagiarism is more likely to be reported than other cases of academic misconduct such as p-hacking (Head et al. 2015 ), data fabrication (Horbach et al. 2020 ), or publications in predatory journals (Grudniewicz et al. 2019 ). Taking into account our present study, if the case of plagiarism can be denied despite the clear-cut evidence of misconduct found, there are more academic misconducts unexposed. This is, of course, not uniquely the case in Indonesia, but we argue that it is prevalent in the place where academic publications are still grim, particularly in the so-called non-Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) societies (Henrich et al. 2010 ). Hence, as scientific publications about academic misconduct from non-WEIRD societies are still scarce, more research taking on such issues is suggested.

As a final point, what we can learn from the findings of the present study is that even though plagiarism is known to be detrimental to the advancement of science, it cannot escape politicization. Power relations can determine who can be punished or not. When the accusation of plagiarism emerges during a political contestation in a university, the accused plagiarists can deny the accusation, arguing that the true problem is not about plagiarism, but that the accusation is meant to undermine them as a political opponent. Of this issue, we suggest that an independent and authoritative body or unit to handle academic misconducts such as plagiarism should be established. This authoritative body may function in providing information about types of academic misconduct and may take a role to develop the scientific ecosystem which has awareness that academic misconduct is detrimental not just for the advancement of science, but also for the institution and personal reputation. If this can be applied, whistleblowers either from powerful or less powerful faculty members may appear.

Data availability

All data are available in the Open Science Framework at this link https://s.id/DataForPlagiarism .

Higher education institutions are regulated by a Directorate General of Higher Education (Direktorat Jenderal Pendidikan Tinggi/Dirjen DIKTI). From 2014 to 2019, DIKTI was integrated under the Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education. In 2019, DIKTI was re-integrated under the Ministry of Education.

See http://filmindonesia.or.id/movie/viewer/2013#.YWkYKZpBw2y .

P-hacking assumes that even though it is found to be statistically significant (i.e., p  < .05), if the statistical power is low, there is a high probability that the observed finding happened just by chance. Or, the scientists might have attempted to manage nonsignificant results to be significant. In this case, replication studies are necessary (see further explanation about p-hacking in Head et al. 2015 ).

Completed data sources can be seen in https://s.id/DataForPlagiarism with subject “Data for case 1: FR.”.

The team was established by the Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education ( Kemenristekdikti ) after Rakyat Peduli Pendidikan Tinggi and YAS made a report on the FR case to the Ministry.

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It is also informed through his LinkedIn page https://www.linkedin.com/in/supriadi-rustad-43201a36/ .

Among the documents shown by FR are his 1997 dissertation proposal, three dissertation drafts (2000, 2001, and 2002), 2000 final dissertation draft.

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Acknowledgements

We thank members of KIKA for their support of this project and wish to thank Maria Shafita for her contribution in language editing.

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Idhamsyah Eka Putra

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Idhamsyah Eka Putra conceptualized and developed the idea, design of the present research, and the finalization of the manuscript. Nur Inda Jazilah and Dhia Al-Uyun contributed to data collecting and reporting results. Nur Inda Jazilah contributed to data analysis. Made Syanesti Adishesa contributed the plagiarism cases in general. Herlambang Wiratratman contributed to share info of plagiarism in Indonesia. All the authors approved the final manuscript for submission.

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Putra, I.E., Jazilah, N.I., Adishesa, M.S. et al. Denying the accusation of plagiarism: power relations at play in dictating plagiarism as academic misconduct. High Educ 85 , 979–997 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-022-00875-z

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The Plagiarism War Has Begun

Claudine Gay was taken down by a politically motivated investigation. Would the same approach work for any academic?

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Updated at 4:10 p.m. ET on January 4, 2024.

When the conservative authors Christopher Rufo and Christopher Brunet accused Harvard’s Claudine Gay last month of having committed plagiarism in her dissertation, they were clearly motivated by a culture-war opportunity . Gay, the school’s first Black president—and, for some critics , an avatar of the identity-politics bureaucracy on college campuses—had just flubbed testimony before Congress about anti-Semitism on campus. She was already under pressure to resign. Evidence of scholarly misconduct was just the parsley decorating an anti-wokeness blue-plate special.

But soon enough, the integrity of Gay’s research became the central issue in a scandal that appears to have led to her resignation on Tuesday. It turned out that the New York Post had gone to Harvard in October with separate allegations of plagiarism in her published articles; and then, earlier this week, still more examples were produced. “My critics found instances in my academic writings where some material duplicated other scholars’ language, without proper attribution,” Gay wrote in a New York Times op-ed shortly after she’d stepped down. She acknowledged having made “citation errors,” and has in recent weeks requested a handful of formal corrections to published works. Still, she avowed in her op-ed, “I have never misrepresented my research findings, nor have I ever claimed credit for the research of others.”

I haven’t either—at least as far as I know. For the past couple of decades, I’ve been a professor at elite research universities; I’ve published 150 or so scholarly articles and conference papers, and 10 books. Might any of these contain the sort of improprieties that led to a university president’s downfall? I felt sure the answer was no, but the question lingered in my mind and was echoed in the claims of the other academics who have lately rushed to Gay’s defense. Some people argued that her citation practices were not egregious or even that they represent business as usual . “If that’s going to count as plagiarism,” one professor wrote , “all writers are vulnerable to it, and anyone who writes anything controversial can expect to suffer for it.” If all writers were vulnerable, was I?

A version of this question lies at the core of many disagreements over Gay’s departure. Does her now-acknowledged sloppiness really stand out among her peers? What would happen if the same degree of scrutiny were applied to the work of any other scholar? In short: Is the baseline rate of these transgressions in academia high or low?

I had no idea. So, as a simple experiment, I decided to launch a targeted plagiarism investigation of myself to see if similar scrutiny of my dissertation, performed for no good reason, could deliver similar results. Perhaps I, too, am guilty of some carelessness that might be taken—maybe out of context, perhaps in bad faith—as a sign of scholarly malfeasance. I promised my editor ahead of time that I’d come clean about whatever I found, reporting any misdeeds to my university’s research-integrity office and facing applicable consequences.

I’ve had a comfortable, 20-year career in academia; perhaps this would be the end of it.

How to do it? The instances of copying in Claudine Gay’s dissertation that I’ve seen are not the kind that jump right out at you, but they are near-direct quotations of other scholars’ work, presented in the form of paraphrases. Brunet and Rufo appear to have reviewed her roughly 200-page text systematically, and I wanted to hew as close to their methods as possible. When I reached out to ask how they’d performed their analysis, Brunet said “No comment” and Rufo didn’t answer. (Isabel Vincent, the Post reporter who had received separate plagiarism allegations from an anonymous source in October, also declined to offer any details.)

I suspected that the probe had been carried out using one of the several plagiarism-detection software packages that are now available for private use. Jonathan Bailey, a copyright and plagiarism consultant who also runs the plagiarism-news website Plagiarism Today , told me that the analysis of Gay’s dissertation is likely to have been carried out with iThenticate, an online service run by the same company that operates the popular student-oriented plagiarism detector Turnitin. “When dealing with cases of research integrity, the best tool is iThenticate,” he said. Turnitin has cooperative agreements with academic publishers, which allows the software to check a document for text shared with sources that would otherwise be hidden behind paywalls or in library archives. “It’s a pricey tool, but in this space, it’s easily the best one out there,” Bailey added. (Turnitin didn’t respond when I asked whether iThenticate might have been used to investigate Gay’s work.)

Tyler Austin Harper : The real Harvard scandal

On December 29, I downloaded my thesis from the institutional repository at UCLA, where I had earned my doctorate, signed up for an iThenticate account, and arranged for The Atlantic to pay the standard rate of $300 to analyze my dissertation’s 68,038 words.

Then I started to wonder what the hell I was doing. I had fairly strong confidence in the integrity of my work. My dissertation is about how to do cultural criticism of computational works such as software, simulations, and video games—a topic that was novel enough in 2004, when I filed it, that there wasn’t a ton of material for me to copy even if I’d wanted to. But other factors worked against me. Like Gay, who submitted her dissertation in 1997, I wrote mine during a period when computers were commonplace but the scholarly literature wasn’t yet easily searchable. That made it easier for acts of plagiarism, whether intended or not, to go unnoticed. Was it really worth risking my career to overturn those rocks?

On the principle that only a coward hides from the truth, I pressed the “Upload” button on the iThenticate website, waited for the progress bar to fill, then closed my laptop. When I came back for my report the next day, it felt a little like calling up my doctor’s office for the news, possibly bad, about whatever test they had run on my aging, mortal body. I took a breath and clicked to see my result.

It was 74. Was I a plagiarist? This, apparently, was my answer. Plagiarism isn’t normally summed up as a number, so I didn’t know quite how to respond. It seemed plausible that 74 might be a good score. Turns out it wasn’t: The number describes what percentage of a document’s material is similar to text from its database of reference works. My result—my 74—suggested that three-quarters of my dissertation had been copied from other sources. “What the heck?” I said aloud, except I didn’t say “heck . ”

This seemed wrong to me. I was there when I wrote the thing, and I’d have remembered copying seven out of every 10 words from other sources, even 20 years later. Turns out it was wrong. I wrote the dissertation from 2002 to 2004, and the plagiarism software checks a work against whatever it finds—even if the compared text was published later. As Bailey told me, “iThenticate doesn’t detect plagiarism. It detects copied or similar text.” From there, Bailey said, “You have to do a lot of manual work.”

So I started doing the manual work.

The first, most obvious source of my plagiarism score was the fact that I’d subsequently published a book based on my dissertation (a common practice in academia), which itself appeared in many forms throughout the iThenticate database. In other words, the software suggested that I’d plagiarized my dissertation from a future version of myself. But to confirm each of these false-positives, a plagiarism sleuth like myself has to go through the report and click on each allegedly copied source individually.

Once I’d excluded the literal copies of (and commentaries upon) my own work from the analysis, my similarity index dropped to 26 percent. Phew! But iThenticate still listed 288 possible sources of copying. Exonerating myself was going to take a while.

I noticed that a lot of the matches were citations of other books, articles, or materials. iThenticate has a checkbox to “Exclude bibliography,” so I ticked it. Now my score was down to 23. Other matches were literal quotes, which I had quoted with footnotes to their sources. Ticking another checkbox, “Exclude quotes,” brought my similarity index to 9.

Most of the remaining matches were boilerplate chaff. The institutional-archive copy of my dissertation had added a line to the footer of each page, “Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.” iThenticate had matched a dozen or more other dissertations with the same notice, including “Pathogenesis of Bartonella Henselae in the Domestic Cat” and “Hyperdeprivation and Race-Specific Homicide, 1980–1990.” Laboriously excluding those and similar materials left me with 87 potential instances of plagiarism, and a similarity index of 3.

I carefully reviewed the matches that remained. Some were just citations of my work. Others were appropriately footnoted quotations that I’d used, but that iThenticate hadn’t construed as such because they were indented in the text. I also had to click through titles or other proper names that were showing up as copied phrases. Bibliographic citations that the filter hadn’t caught came up too. So did a lot of textual noise—phrases such as to preserve the , which appeared in similar patterns across unrelated materials.

After a couple of hours of work, I still had 60 individual entries to review, each requiring precision mousing to assess and exclude. Determined to see if I’d copied any original work according to the software, I persisted—after all, some of the instances of plagiarism that had sunk Claudine Gay were measured in the tens of words. But not one single match that iThenticate had found amounted to illegitimate copying. In the end, my dissertation’s fraud factor had dropped from 74 percent to zero.

The story I’ve told above has been fact-checked by The Atlantic , although the checking did not replicate the several hours of manual verification. And I realize that on some level I’m just asking you to trust me when I report that the work I analyzed does not include uncited text from other authors. I can only hope the same is true of all my other published research.

Does this imply that Gay’s record is unusual among professors? Not in and of itself. Her field of quantitative social science may have different standards for textual reference. The sciences are more concerned with the originality of research findings than the descriptions of experiments. But it does at least refute the case that this was nothing more than academic jaywalking, or, in its purest straw-man form, that everybody does it .

But even if there’s substance to this Harvard scandal, I’m more afraid of what it may portend. The result of my experiment brought me no relief, only a new anxiety. The very ease of the self-investigation, conducted at a relatively modest cost with the help of powerful technology, hints at how a full-bore plagiarism war could end up playing out. In her New York Times op-ed, Gay admitted that she’d been wrong to copy text without attribution. She also characterized the campaign against her as part of a coordinated attempt to undermine educational institutions and their leaders. On both counts, she was right.

Similar probes are sure to follow. Business Insider has already published allegations that Neri Oxman, a former professor at MIT and the wife of the Harvard donor and vociferous Gay critic Bill Ackman, plagiarized in her dissertation, too. (In a post on X, former Twitter, Oxman acknowledged some improper citations and wrote, “I regret and apologize for these errors.”) And after Gay resigned, Rufo announced that he would contribute $10,000 to a “‘plagiarism hunting’ fund” meant to “expose rot” and “restore truth.” That’s enough dough to test a few dozen dissertations or a few hundred articles with iThenticate, and their authors wouldn’t be able to dismiss the findings solely as the product of “bad faith.” I suppose that’s good news for companies such as Turnitin. (Academics may be getting their just deserts for subjecting students to constant surveillance with the company’s student-focused plagiarism-detection software.)

Read: The first year of AI college ends in ruin

If a plagiarism war does break out, I suspect that universities and their leaders will end up fighting it defensively, with bureaucratic weapons directed inward. “If I were a school looking to appoint a new president,” Bailey told me, “I’d consider doing this kind of analysis before doing so.” To run standard plagiarism checks on top brass may end up seeming reasonable, but with that policy in place, what’s to stop beleaguered and embattled administrators from insisting on the same—best practices!—before any faculty hire or award of tenure? Academic publishers could demand iThenticate-style checks on all submissions. Legislatures could demand plagiarism-assessment reports from state colleges, with a special focus on fields that are purportedly “woke.”

Plagiarism assessment, with automated accusations and manual rebuttals, could become a way of life, a necessary evil brought about by, yes, the bad actors who seek to undermine educational institutions and their leaders. That isn’t likely to improve academic work, but it would certainly make higher education worse.

This story previously stated that Neri Oxman is a professor at MIT. Business Insider reports that, according to the university, Oxman left in 2021.

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What Is Plagiarism?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines plagiarism as follows:

plagiarism, n.

• The action or practice of taking someone else's work, idea, etc., and passing it off as one's own; literary theft.
• A particular idea, piece of writing, design, etc., which has been plagiarized; an act or product of plagiary.

The UC Student Code of Conduct defines plagiarism as:

• submitting another’s published or unpublished work in whole, in part or in paraphrase, as one’s own without fully and properly crediting the author with footnotes, quotation marks, citations, or bibliographic references.
• submitting as one’s own original work, material obtained from an individual, agency, or the internet without reference to the person, agency or webpage as the source of the material.
• submitting as one’s own original work material that has been produced through unacknowledged collaboration with others without release in writing from collaborators
• submitting one’s own previously written or oral work without modification and instructor permission.

Learn more about plagiarism and its avoidance

• Avoiding plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and other questionable writing practices: A guide to ethical writing This excellent guide covers many aspects of ethical writing and plagiarism, including self-plagiarism, ethically inappropriate writing practices, authorship issues and conflict of interest .
• Plagiarism — Graduate Level Video tutorials created at CJSU King Library, including one on copyright infringement and fair use.
• Plagiarism Spectrum 2.0 The "Plagiarism Spectrum 2.0" from Turnitin identifies twelve types of unoriginal work — both traditional forms of plagiarism and emerging trends. The page includes a link to infographics describing types of unoriginal work and providing pedagogical strategies and technology interventions for faculty

Plagiarism in the Sciences

• Ethical Guidelines to Publication of Chemical Research (PDF) The guidelines embodied in this document were revised by the Editors of the Publications Division of the American Chemical Society in July 2015.

In addition, plagiarism in the sciences is part of a broader definition of misconduct inresearch.The recognition of the larger framework into which the specific issue of plagiarism in the sciences fits can be seen in the National Science Foundation (NSF) definition of research misconduct as “fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting research results.” Issues of citation when using other people’s work, however, apply in the sciences as in other fields of academic work.

(The content of this box is taken from Avoiding and Detecting Plagiarism: A Guide for Graduate Students and Faculty created at the Graduate Center, City University of New York).

Plagiarism Detection Software

Turnitin is a plagiarism detection tool that is embedded within Canvas. By applying Turnitin to a Canvas assignment, you can check the originality of student work against the expansive Turnitin database. Turnitin can be used for both group and individual assignments and is a great way to prevent, as well as detect plagiarism within student writing. Turnitin can also be used as a formative tool to help students learn appropriate citation practices.

 As a student, you need to know how to submit a Turnitin-enabled assignment and how to access and understand the similarity report.

As an instructor, learn how to set up a Turnitin assignment and read an originality report .

Copyright and Fair Use

Find a wealth of information in our Copyright FAQ Guide.

See Library Materials for Online Teaching for FAQ on copyright in online teaching.

Copyright and Dissertations

• Copyright and Your Dissertation or Thesis: Ownership, Fair Use, and Your Rights and Responsibilties" This manual created by Kenneth D. Crews, Director of the Copyright Office at Columbia University, "is principally intended to help readers learn and understand the copyright issues relevant to doctoral dissertations."
• Copyright and Your Dissertation or Thesis (ProQuest) (PDF) General guidelines for avoiding copyright infringement in your dissertation or thesis. The document includes a sample permission request for use of previously copyrighted material.
• Dissertation and Master's Theses Traditional Publishing Agreement (ProQuest)

Module with a Quiz for Your Students

As a teaching assistant, you need to educate your students about plagiarism and its consequences. Your students can learn about plagiarism and ways to avoid it by taking a module that concludes with a quiz.

Course version

If you wish to assign the plagiarism module to students who are enrolled in an existing Canvas course or organization which you administer, please follow the steps below.

• Login to Canvas.
• Click on the "Commons" link or icon on the left side of the screen.
• Click "Filter," scroll down to the bottom and  the click the button for University of Cincinnati.
• In the search box type "plagiarism." Click the link for "Plagiarism: Why Should It Matter to You."
• Once the module screen, click the "Import/Download" button on the right side.
• Choose the destination course for the module.
• Click "Import into Course."
• The module will appear under "Modules" in the course menu. The “For Instructors” page includes information about editing the module within your course.
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Summer Research

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Self-Guided Plagiarism Tutorial

Common and uncommon forms of plagiarism, tips for avoiding plagiarism.

The following self-guided tutorial will help you learn more about plagiarism:

CLICK HERE TO BEGIN THE TUTORIAL

Plagiarism is the act of taking the work, opinion, content, or idea of a person or program (e.g. AI)  and either passing it off as your own or not clearly acknowledging the original source. . Plagiarism can be intentional or unintentional.

Why is this important?

•  Each person deserves the rewards and the recognition for their intellectual creations
• Plagiarism protections help foster further creativity
• Understanding plagiarism protects you from failing grades, accusations of malfeasance, and/or looking sloppy

So let's look at some of the common, and uncommon, forms of plagiarism

Copying content from another researcher or AI program without properly attributing it If you take the ideas or content of another person or AI program and utilize it in your paper you must cite the creator. This can include copying just one or two sentences. You can also not utilize the ideas or concepts of another person or program without citing that. The golden rule for citing ideas or opinions is that If you had to look it up then you need to cite it.

Furthermore, plagiarism can occur by improperly citing a resource. For example, if you improperly cited a research publication, author, or other important information, this would be a type of plagiarism. 

Having improper or misleading citations Plagiarism can also technically occur through sloppy citations or incorrectly citing a source. Here are some different types of source-based plagiarism.

• A researcher cites the wrong source 
• A researcher uses a secondary source of information, but only cites the primary source. For example, if you are reading an article and the author cites another study that you also want to cite, you must review that original study and not assume the author that you are reading is summarizing and citing that research correctly.
• Data misrepresentation and falsification can also be a form of plagiarism. 

Here are some tips to avoid plagiarism. 

Tip 1: Cite sources and make sure your citations are accurate. When in doubt, cite. Also ask your instructor or a librarian for assistance when needed.

Tip 2: Keep your citations organized. Staying organized can go a long way in avoiding plagiarism. There are free citation management applications that can assist you with keeping organized. For example, Zotero, Mendeley, and EndNote all offer citation management assistance. Click this link to learn more about citation management applications .

Tip 3: Never copy and paste the work of someone else into your paper with the expectation that you'll fix it or properly cite it at a later time. Many esteemed researchers and writers have fallen into this trap, forgotten to edit their paper later, and found themselves embroiled in a plagiarism scandal. 

Tip 4: Do not read the summary of a research article via a secondary source and than cite the original article as if you read it. For example, if you find a researcher talking about a research article, such as in a literature review section, do not cite that original article until you have read and evaluated it. The same goes with data sets. 

Tip 5: Proofread your paper. Ask yourself:

• Are my citations consistent? Do they adhere to the citation format that I'm using (such as APA)?
• Is the idea or opinion that I'm presenting my own or is it something that I read elsewhere?
• Is every in-text citation included in the reference section?
• Did I thoroughly read the assignment?

Tip 6: Cite everything you are borrowing, not just research. For example, if you are using images, multimedia, charts, and data you must cite that as well.

Tip 7: When in doubt, ask a librarian or your instructor.

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Research guidance, Research Journals, Top Universities

UGC guidelines for plagiarism | Levels of plagiarism as per UGC regulation 2018

This blog post aims to provide details regarding UGC guidelines for plagiarism .

Page Contents

UGC REGULATIONS, 2018 for PROMOTION OF ACADEMIC INTEGRITY AND PREVENTION OF PLAGIARISM IN HIGHER EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

The following rules related to Plagiarism shall apply to the students, faculty, researchers and staff of all Higher Educational Institutions in the country.

• To create awareness about responsible conduct of research, thesis, dissertation, promotion of academic integrity and prevention of misconduct including plagiarism in academic writing among student, faculty, researcher and staff.
• To establish institutional mechanism through education and training to facilitate responsible conduct of research, thesis, dissertation, promotion of academic integrity and deterrence from plagiarism.
• To develop systems to detect plagiarism and to set up mechanisms to prevent plagiarism and punish a student, faculty, researcher or staff of HEI committing the act of plagiarism.

Similarity checks for exclusion from Plagiarism

The similarity checks for plagiarism shall exclude the following:

• All quoted work reproduced with all necessary permission and/or attribution.
• All references, bibliography, table of content, preface and acknowledgements.
• All generic terms, laws, standard symbols and standards equations.

The research work carried out by the student, faculty, researcher and staff shall be based on original ideas, which shall  include abstract, summary, hypothesis, observations, results, conclusions and recommendations only and shall not have  any similarities. It shall exclude a common knowledge or coincidental terms, up to fourteen (14) consecutive words.

  Levels of Plagiarism

Plagiarism would be quantified into following levels in ascending order of severity for the purpose of its definition:

Level 0: Similarities up to 10% – Minor similarities, no penalty

Level 1: Similarities above 10% to 40%

Level 2: Similarities above 40% to 60%

Level 3: Similarities above 60%

  Penalties in case of plagiarism in submission of thesis and dissertations

Institutional Academic Integrity Panel (IAIP) shall impose penalty considering the severity of the Plagiarism.

i. Level 0: Similarities up to 10% – Minor Similarities, no penalty.

ii. Level 1: Similarities above 10% to 40% – Such student shall be asked to submit a revised script within a stipulated time period not exceeding 6 months.

iii. Level 2: Similarities above 40% to 60% – Such student shall be debarred from submitting a revised script for a period of one year.

iv. Level 3: Similarities above 60% -Such student registration for that programme shall be cancelled.

Penalties in case of plagiarism in academic and research publications

I. Level 0: Similarities up to 10% – Minor similarities, no penalty.

II. Level 1: Similarities above 10% to 40%

i) Shall be asked to withdraw manuscript.

III. Level 2: Similarities above 40% to 60%

ii) Shall be denied a right to one annual increment.

iii) Shall not be allowed to be a supervisor to any new Master’s, M.Phil., Ph.D. Student/scholar for a period of two years.

IV. Level 3: Similarities above 60%

ii) Shall be denied a right to two successive annual increments.

iii) Shall not be allowed to be a supervisor to any new Master’s, M.Phil., Ph.D. Student/scholar for a period of three years.

Detection and Handling of Plagiarism | Charges of Plagiarism

If any member of the academic community suspects with appropriate proof that a case of plagiarism has happened in any document, he or she shall report it to the Departmental Academic Integrity Panel (DAIP). Upon receipt of such a complaint or allegation the DAIP shall investigate the matter and submit its recommendations to the Institutional Academic Integrity Panel (IAIP) of the HEI.

The authorities of HEI can also take suomotu notice of an act of plagiarism and initiate proceedings under these regulations. Similarly, proceedings can also be initiated by the HEI on the basis of findings of an examiner. All such cases will be investigated by the IAIP.

UGC guidelines for phd thesis format

How to  start a Ph.D. research  program in India?

UGC assistant professor eligibility/ selection criteria

Free and Paid plagiarism checkers for research papers/ thesis

Sources: UGC

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How To Avoid Plagiarism And Prove Your Research & Writing Are Topnotch

• What Is Plagiarism?
• Types Of Plagiarism
• Can You Plagiarize Yourself?
• Consequences
• Best Practices
• Why Cite Sources
• How To Cite

You have a term paper due in the morning and you just need a few more paragraphs to finally finish it and go to bed. You’re tired. You’re frustrated. You can’t think of anything else to say about the science behind bioaccumulation . So, what do you do? Do you look it up in the dictionary and decide to just copy and paste a paragraph or two of the Homework Helper, change a couple of words, and call it a night?

It’s a relatable situation—and a tempting solution in the moment.

But wait! Your whole academic career is at stake here! What you were just about to do is an incredibly serious mistake that could cost you everything. You might be thinking “Oh, come on! It’s just a few words. What’s the big deal?” Well, stealing someone else’s words or ideas is actually, in fact, a super big deal. A bigger deal than you might even realize. You see, this act of intellectual theft is called plagiarism, and it is taken very seriously. How seriously? Well, we will get to that shortly, but first let’s learn more about what plagiarism actually is.

What is plagiarism ?

Plagiarism is “an act or instance of using or closely imitating the language and thoughts of another author without authorization and the representation of that author’s work as one’s own, as by not crediting the original author.”

In other words, plagiarism is taking someone else’s work and passing it off as your own without crediting the person you took it from. While the word plagiarism is most often used to refer to writing, it can also refer to using someone else’s photos, video, music, and other forms of media. To give one summation, the University of Oxford states that “All published and unpublished material, whether in manuscript, printed or electronic form” falls under the definition of plagiarism.  (Note: while this article links to sources, as is widely customary in popular writing, it is important to know that the specific guidelines for citation vary depending on the medium.) The verb form of plagiarism is plagiarize and a person who plagiarizes something is called a plagiarist.

An obvious example of plagiarism would be if you copied a chapter of author J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (1954) and claimed it was a fantasy short story that you wrote. It would also be considered plagiarism to perform one of Beethoven’s sonatas while crediting yourself as the original composer. However, claiming someone’s work as your own without changing anything isn’t the only form of plagiarism.

Rather than plagiarize, let memorable works inspire you instead, such as the way works of literature inspired these famous songs.

What are the different types of plagiarism?

Depending on the workplace, college, or other organization, the exact rules for what is and isn’t plagiarism may be different. In general, you don’t have to worry about plagiarism when you are stating common knowledge (facts your intended audience is likely to know), such as A triceratops is a dinosaur. You also do not need to worry about plagiarism if you are stating your own opinions, your own arguments, or are making a creative work that only includes all of your own original ideas and creations. For example, the statement I believe “The Raven” is Edgar Allen Poe’s best work because it clearly demonstrates his talent as an American Gothic writer is an opinion and doesn’t need to have a citation.

In most cases, plagiarism isn’t just limited to using someone else’s exact words as your own. Generally speaking, plagiarism is often separated into several different categories. The exact names of each of these types often change, but most of them are specifically mentioned in a university’s rules on academic dishonesty, such as those found at Northern Illinois University or the University of Oxford , or in articles about the topic of plagiarism in higher education .

Verbatim or direct plagiarism

This kind of plagiarism is the most obvious and is what most people probably think of when they hear the word plagiarism. This form of plagiarism involves simply “copy and pasting” someone’s exact words without changing a single thing. Here is an example of verbatim  (“word for word”) plagiarism:

• Original text: Tigers are solitary animals. They largely keep to themselves until the mating season. They are not the group hunters that lions are known to be.
• Plagiarized text:   Tigers are solitary animals. They largely keep to themselves until the mating season. They are not the group hunters that lions are known to be.

Paraphrasing plagiarism

This kind of plagiarism occurs when a person paraphrases a source or multiple sources without crediting the original author(s). Remember, facts must be attributed to a source if a writer personally didn’t discover them and the facts are not considered common knowledge. So, even when paraphrasing it is important to use phrasing such as “according to” or “as said by” to clarify what information is not an original thought.

In paraphrasing   plagiarism, the wording or word order of the original source is changed—but the plagiarized text may retain too many similarities to the original. Additionally, the plagiarist is still trying to pass off someone else’s ideas or research as their own. This form of plagiarism is especially common and some people do it without actually intending to commit plagiarism. Especially when a student first begins to engage in more intensive writing, they may be overwhelmed by the complexity of recognizing that all unoriginal research must be cited . Here is a simple example of plagiarism through paraphrasing:

• Plagiarized text:   Tigers usually live alone. Unless it is the mating season, they mostly keep to themselves. Unlike lions, they are not known to be group hunters.

As you can see, in this particular case, the writer both retains much of the general structure and wording of the original text but does not offer a significant enough revision. Crucially, the writer fails to cite the source of this text at all, and so this is considered plagiarism.

Patchwork or mosaic plagiarism

This type of plagiarism is similar to paraphrasing. Patchwork  or mosaic plagiarism involves interweaving paraphrasing of sources with some of the author’s own ideas or arguments. Because the stolen and original material is mixed together, it can be more difficult for a reader to recognize which words or ideas have been copied from sources. For example, consider a research team that observes real-life tiger behavior. The background information included in its report about tiger behavior should be cited even if the research gathered via tiger observation is original. Here is a simple example of this kind of plagiarism :

• Plagiarized text:   Tigers are different from lions in many ways. Unlike lions, tigers mostly live solitary lives. Tigers and lions also live in different habitats and hunt different prey. This may explain why tigers do not hunt or live large groups like lions are known to do. Our research team observed solitary behavior by all tigers during the summer we visited the preserve.

The writer’s mistake in this instance is not citing any of the material gathered through research of others’ work.

Do you know the difference between primary and secondary sources? Learn more about the importance of each kind of source for the next time you cite them.

Collusion or sharing

This kind of plagiarism involves two or more people working together to pass off one person’s work as another’s , hence the implication of collusion (“a secret agreement, especially for fraudulent or treacherous purposes”). This type of plagiarism can be common in schools or colleges, where students will share essays or complete each other’s assignments. Even though a person may have another’s consent to use their work, it is still considered plagiarism because a person is trying to deceive someone (their teacher or professor) by claiming another’s work as one’s own.

Paid or hired plagiarism

Similar to collusion, paid plagiarism involves paying someone to create something and then passing it off as one’s own work. Hired plagiarism can involve paying another student for their essay or hiring a freelance writer to complete a report.

Improper citation and accidental plagiarism

Depending on the organization, poor or incorrect citations may be treated the same as other types of plagiarism. Generally speaking, this is more likely to be the case when it involves major errors such as unattributed quotations or an absence of a bibliography rather than a minor misspelling of a source’s name or a missing colon. Still, laziness or apathy when sourcing is often an indication that a person is unconcerned with properly crediting their sources and thus is often considered just as serious a breach of ethics or academic integrity as other types of plagiarism.

Can you plagiarize yourself?

There is a term for the act of plagiarizing yourself: self-plagiarism . In academic settings, self-plagiarism typically involves using the same essay or assignment in multiple classes. Unlike all other forms of plagiarism, this type may be rarely permitted in schools or colleges if a student asks for permission from their instructor first. Of course, not asking first is never a good idea!

Outside of schools, self-plagiarism may take the form of a researcher using the same exact wording and data in multiple papers or citing their own previous work . In academia and scientific research, it is important to cite work done by others so you can use their research to strengthen your own ideas or arguments by showing that your original ideas are based on facts and proper evidence. Self-plagiarizing creates the illusion of supporting evidence when an author uses their (and only their) own previous work to support their arguments or hypotheses .

Self-plagiarism also often involves copyright and intellectual property law (we’ll get to these more later). The simple explanation is that a creator often surrenders the rights to their work to a newspaper, record company, or publishing house. If that person then tries to use that same content again elsewhere, they are very likely to face a lawsuit. As the Supreme Court case of Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc demonstrates, even if the person is the original creator, they still face the possibility of being accused of plagiarism if using content they don’t control the legal rights to.

What are the consequences of plagiarism?

Given all that has been said, you are probably asking yourself “Is plagiarism a crime?” Generally speaking, the act of plagiarism itself is not illegal as there is no criminal or civil law against it in most places. However, the consequences for committing plagiarism can be serious. If caught committing plagiarism, a student is very likely to be expelled from school and a person is likely to be fired and/or ostracized from their professional community.

An infamous example of this occurred in the 2003 New York Times plagiarism scandal involving former journalist Jayson Blair. It was discovered that Blair made up many of the facts in his stories and repeatedly plagiarized other newspapers. Blair resigned from the newspaper and would never work in journalism again. However, Blair’s actions damaged the credibility of the paper to the extent that several longtime editors resigned soon after to attempt to lessen the damage to the Times’s reputation. The moral of the story: do not commit plagiarism!   

In the United States and elsewhere, most colleges consider plagiarism to be completely and unquestionably unacceptable . It is treated as a serious violation of academic integrity and the punishment for even the first incidence of plagiarism is often an immediate failure of a class, lengthy suspension, or even outright expulsion.

Professionally, a person who commits plagiarism often violates what are known as copyright and intellectual property laws and will face often incredibly expensive lawsuits.

What is protected by copyright?

Very briefly, the term intellectual property (often shortened to “IP”) refers to works of creativity and includes all kinds of creative things such as books, music, film, video games, logos, symbols, and so on. As stated by the World Intellectual Property Organization , intellectual property is protected by the law through things like patents , trademarks , and copyright . Like any other property, IP can be owned by a person or company and the owner has the right to make money off of it.

Copyright is the legally protected right to original ownership, according to the United States Copyright Office . As outlined in a guide to copyright by Cornell University , if someone has the copyrights to something, they (and only they) are legally allowed to make copies of it, make other works based on it, distribute copies of it, publicly perform it, or publicly display it. Copyright law gets extremely complex, but you can think of a copyright as the “right” to decide who gets to “copy” something.

In practice, this means that an original creator is usually the only person who can use their creation unless they give permission to someone (such as through contracts or licensing agreements) or sell the copyright to someone else. For example, director George Lucas and his company Lucasfilm owned the copyrights ( over 3,000 of them, in fact ) to Star Wars after Lucas created the movie franchise in the 1970s. That meant that only George Lucas, Lucasfilm, and anyone Lucasfilm gave permission to (likely after receiving payment) could lawfully create things that used Star Wars or any of its characters. However, the Walt Disney Company would buy Lucasfilm , and thus gain control of its copyrights, in 2012. This means that now Disney (as the owner of Lucasfilm) has the legal right to say who can and cannot create something that uses Star Wars or any of its characters. This means that even George Lucas would now need Disney’s permission to make a Star Wars film, despite the fact that he was the original creator.

Learn more about how copyright works by examining the symbols for copyright, trademark, and more.

Best practices to avoid plagiarism

If you want to avoid plagiarism, it is important to learn the proper way to give credit to sources and to use citations. Listed below are the three major styles that are often consulted when making citations and generally what topics they are used for:

• APA style (American Psychological Association): business writing and the sciences
• MLA style (Modern Language Association): the humanities
• Chicago Manual of Style (Chicago style): history, theology, religious studies, the humanities, and some sciences

Usually, an instructor or your boss will make it clear which style you are expected to use. You can find many reference books and online resources that explain how to use each of these styles correctly.

Some general advice 

While each style guide has different rules for things such as footnotes and bibliographies, there is some general advice that is common among them—and it boils down to, well, good research, critical thinking, and writing.

• Keep good, organized notes that separate your own ideas, statements, and arguments from your sources. By doing this, you will be able to remember to cite the information later, and it will be much easier to find the original source again if you need it.
• Use direct quotes only when you really need to. Using an author’s exact words is best if they make a very important point or use especially interesting or persuasive language. Needless to say, exact quotes must be thoroughly and properly cited within the text and in footnotes.
• Rather than paraphrase, it is better to summarize an author’s general point or argument using your own words. Even when doing so, you must note where the information you used came from by properly citing and crediting the source.
• In general, citing and crediting is not necessary if you are stating common knowledge, mentioning a work or author briefly in passing, or collectively referencing a person’s entire career, philosophy, or body of work.

Why cite sources and information

Cite, cite, cite! While some writers may fear that citing sources is a sign of weakness because the ideas aren’t original, citing is a sign of effective, strong writing—and it shows that a writer is using research to support arguments they are making or information they are synthesizing.

Citing sources is a fantastic habit to get into. Taking the time to properly and clearly cite all of your sources will earn you the love and respect of your teachers, employees, and editors. Properly citing sources is good because:

• It helps avoid plagiarism by making it clear what is not your own words or research.
• It shows you care enough about your work to follow basic style guidelines.
• It shows that you actually did research, so your writing is more likely to be accurate.
• It shows you know how to use reference materials and analyze and synthesize sources for useful or supportive information.
• It allows another person to use those same resources to review your work so they can both ensure its accuracy and that you didn’t simply copy a source verbatim.

How to cite sources and information

So, how do you actually cite something when you want to reference it in your work? Well, that depends a lot on what exactly your source is and how you intend to cite it. For now, let’s assume you want to cite our great article on the difference between the words college and university. Let’s make good citations of this article using all three major styles (APA, Chicago, and MLA).

APA Style  

Using APA Style , we can make both an in-text and reference list citation of our source.

Thesaurus.com. (n.d.) “College” vs. “University”: Are They Synonyms?  Retrieved June 7, 2023 from https://www.thesaurus.com/e/ways-to-say/college-vs-university/

• In-text citation: Parenthetical: (Thesaurus.com, n.d.) Narrative: Thesaurus.com (n.d.)

Chicago Style

With Chicago Style , we can (and must) cite our source using notes and in the bibliography.

““College” vs. “University:” Are They Synonyms?” Thesaurus.com, accessed June 7, 2023, https://www.thesaurus.com/e/ways-to-say/college-vs-university/

Thesaurus.com. ““College” vs. “University:” Are They Synonyms?” Accessed June 7, 2023. https://www.thesaurus.com/e/ways-to-say/college-vs-university/

MLA Style also uses both in-text citations and citations in a Works Cited List.

“College” vs. “University:” Are They Synonyms?” Thesaurus.com,   https://www.thesaurus.com/e/ways-to-say/college-vs-university/ Accessed 7 June 2023

• In-text citation: (““College” vs. “University””)

As you can see, each style guide handles citations differently. These citations work for an article on a website, but there are tons of other sources of information that can be cited. For more information on citing specific sources, you should consult the particular style guide of the citation style you are using.

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AI For Dissertation: Best AI Tools For Masters & PhD Thesis Writing

Writing a dissertation can be a daunting task for master’s and PhD students, but AI tools are transforming this challenging process.

From generating detailed mind maps to providing accurate citations and real-time research insights, AI-powered writing assistants streamline every aspect of thesis writing.

In this article, we explore the best AI tools available, highlighting how they can:

• enhance your academic writing,
• simplify complex tasks, and
• help produce high-quality, well-structured content.

Best AI Tools For Masters & PhD Thesis Writing

Heuristi.ca – mind map maker.

Heuristi.ca is an AI-powered writing tool designed to streamline your dissertation writing process.

This AI tool helps you write your thesis or research paper by creating detailed mind maps tailored to academic writing.

You input a topic, like “organic photovoltaics,” and the AI generates related concepts and real-time insights. This assists in organising your literature review and structuring your academic writing.

The AI assistant ensures coherence by connecting related ideas, making writing more manageable and efficient. It helps avoid plagiarism by providing original content and AI-driven citation suggestions. 

By automating and streamlining aspects of the writing process, Heuristi.ca helps you meet deadlines and maintain academic standards.

Open Read – Generate Summaries 

Open Read is an AI-powered writing tool designed to enhance your thesis writing process. With Open Read, you can upload research papers and receive AI-generated summaries, making literature reviews more manageable.

The tool offers real-time features like paper Q&A and AI summaries, which streamline your academic writing tasks.

For example, you can upload a PDF and get a concise summary, along with detailed insights into the paper’s background and significance.

This AI tool helps you write your dissertation by breaking down complex information into bite-sized chunks, saving you time and effort.

Open Read also helps ensure academic integrity by providing accurate citations and checking for plagiarism. 

Explain Paper

Explain Paper is an AI tool that simplifies the academic writing process.E xplain Paper supports dissertation writing by making research more digestible and manageable. 

To use Explain Paper, simply:

• upload a research paper,
• select the text you want to understand, and
• choose an explanation level. 

The AI provides clear explanations tailored to different educational levels, making complex research accessible. 

You can select a dense paragraph and have it explained as if to a middle schooler or a college student. This helps in breaking down intricate concepts, streamlining your literature review.

The tool also ensures your writing adheres to academic standards by providing coherent summaries and related resources.

Paper Brain

Paper Brain is an AI tool designed to streamline your academic writing process. You upload a research paper, and the AI analyzes and generates concise summaries, making it easier to grasp complex topics.

This AI-powered assistant helps you write your dissertation by providing clear and concise explanations, ensuring coherence and adherence to academic standards.

You can upload a paper on graphene thickness measurement, and Paper Brain will summarise its key points and answer specific questions about the research.

This tool is invaluable for literature reviews, as it simplifies the extraction of relevant information. Graduate students writing a thesis can benefit from Paper Brain’s AI technology, which makes writing tasks more manageable and efficient. 

Einblick is an AI-powered writing tool that simplifies data visualisation for your dissertation or thesis.

Einblick can analyze and present data coherently, helping you write your dissertation with accurate, well-organized charts and graphs.

This tool is simple to use – you upload your dataset, describe the chart you need, and Einblick generates it.

This tool helps you visualise complex data quickly and efficiently, which is crucial for academic writing and literature reviews.

Let’s say if you need a scatterplot of N2O versus CH4 emissions. Einblick creates it in seconds. This AI assistant streamlines the thesis writing process by providing clear, tailored visual aids, ensuring your research paper meets academic standards.

Tavily is an AI-powered research assistant designed to streamline your dissertation writing process. You simply input your research topic, and Tavily creates an AI agent that scours the internet for relevant information.

This AI tool ensures that the data you receive is accurate and up-to-date, helping you write your dissertation or thesis with confidence.

If you’re researching organic photovoltaic devices, Tavily will provide:

• detailed summaries,
• key findings, and
• relevant sources.

This AI writing assistant makes the literature review process more manageable by automating and streamlining the search for academic papers.

It also offers tailored content that adheres to academic standards, ensuring coherence and quality in your writing.

Graduate students find Tavily invaluable for meeting deadlines and enhancing academic writing skills. The tool’s ability to analyse and synthesise vast amounts of data in real-time allows you to focus on the writing process. 

Using AI technology, Tavily helps you achieve academic success by providing a solid foundation for your thesis or dissertation.

Power Drill

Power Drill is an AI-powered writing tool designed to assist you in the dissertation writing process. To use Power Drill, you start by uploading your data sets, which can be:

• web pages, or
• files. 

The AI then analyses these data sources, providing insightful summaries and answers to specific questions.

This helps streamline the research and writing process, making it easier to organize your thoughts and structure your thesis.

You can upload a research paper, and Power Drill will highlight key points and generate concise summaries. This AI tool helps you write your dissertation by breaking down complex information into manageable parts, saving you time and effort.

Graduate students find Power Drill particularly helpful for meeting deadlines and adhering to academic standards.

The tool ensures coherence in your writing by offering accurate citations and reducing the risk of plagiarism.

Power Drill can also scan vast databases and provide real-time insights, helping you achieve academic success and write a compelling thesis or dissertation.

SciSpace is an AI-powered writing tool designed to simplify the academic writing process for dissertations and theses.

You upload your research papers, and SciSpace provides detailed summaries and key insights, making literature reviews more manageable. This AI tool uses natural language processing to extract essential information, helping you organise and streamline your writing tasks.

When you upload a PDF, SciSpace offers a concise “too long; didn’t read” summary, highlighting conclusions and significant points.

This is especially useful for graduate students who need to write their dissertation or thesis efficiently.

SciSpace also includes an AI writing assistant, which helps ensure coherence and adherence to academic standards by generating accurate citations and checking for plagiarism.

Using AI technology, SciSpace can analyze vast databases and provide real-time insights, making your writing process more manageable.

This tool helps you meet deadlines and achieve academic success by automating and streamlining various aspects of academic writing, ultimately supporting you in creating well-structured and high-quality written content.

Next Net – For Drug & Health Research

Next Net is an AI-powered tool tailored for those in the drug and health research fields. This AI assistant helps you write your dissertation or thesis by providing comprehensive, real-time searches of the latest literature and research data.

You input your query, and Next Net uses advanced AI technology to scan vast databases for relevant information.

For example, if you’re researching new drugs, Next Net offers detailed insights into recent developments, gene expressions, and clinical trials.

This AI tool streamlines the literature review process by organizing complex data into manageable, easy-to-understand summaries.

Graduate students find Next Net invaluable for its ability to generate accurate citations and ensure academic integrity.

Next Net’s AI-driven approach makes writing a thesis more efficient, allowing you to focus on creating well-structured, high-quality content. This AI tool is essential for achieving academic success in the health research domain.

Chat GPT, Perplexity, Bing

ChatGPT , Perplexity, and Bing are AI-powered writing tools that significantly enhance the academic writing process. Each tool leverages artificial intelligence to assist with various aspects of dissertation and thesis writing.

ChatGPT uses advanced natural language processing to generate coherent, detailed responses to research queries. You can ask it to help:

• outline your thesis,
• draft sections of your dissertation, or
• provide insights on complex topics.

It’s particularly useful for brainstorming and refining ideas, making writing tasks more manageable. You can also create templates to help you generate texts faster.

Perplexity , another AI tool, excels at providing real-time, accurate references for your research paper. By asking Perplexity detailed questions, you get precise, sourced answers that streamline your literature review. 

Bing, integrated with AI, offers a balanced approach to research. You can specify the type of response you need—creative, balanced, or precise—making it a versatile assistant for academic writing.

Bing’s AI can scan vast databases to find relevant information, helping you write your dissertation or thesis with comprehensive, up-to-date data.

By automating and streamlining the writing process, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Bing help you achieve academic success with well-researched and well-written content.

AI Tools For Thesis and Dissertation Writing

From Heuristi.ca’s mind mapping to ChatGPT’s brainstorming capabilities, these AI-powered assistants streamline literature reviews, ensure academic standards, and provide accurate citations.

Tools like Open Read and Explain Paper simplify complex concepts, while Einblick and Next Net offer data visualization and real-time research insights.

By leveraging these AI tools, graduate students can enhance their academic writing skills, meet deadlines, and achieve academic success efficiently.

Dr Andrew Stapleton has a Masters and PhD in Chemistry from the UK and Australia. He has many years of research experience and has worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow and Associate at a number of Universities. Although having secured funding for his own research, he left academia to help others with his YouTube channel all about the inner workings of academia and how to make it work for you.

Thank you for visiting Academia Insider.

We are here to help you navigate Academia as painlessly as possible. We are supported by our readers and by visiting you are helping us earn a small amount through ads and affiliate revenue - Thank you!

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Retraction Watch

Tracking retractions as a window into the scientific process

A look at plagiarism at the Pontifical Gregorian University

Retraction Watch readers may recall the work of Michael Dougherty , who has established a reputation as a sleuth focused on plagiarism. We are pleased to present an excerpt of Dougherty’s new book, New Techniques for Proving Plagiarism: Case Studies from the Sacred Disciplines at the Pontifical Gregorian University , Studies in Research Integrity, vol. 2 (Leiden: Brill 2024).

The principles of textual criticism—borrowed from the fields of classics and medieval studies—have a valuable application for plagiarism investigations. Plagiarists share key features with medieval scribes who worked in scriptoriums and produced copies of manuscripts. Both kinds of copyists—scribes and plagiarists—engage in similar processes, and they commit certain distinctive copying errors that fall into identifiable classes. When committed by plagiarists, these copying errors have probative value for making determinations that a text is copied, and hence, unoriginal. 

To demonstrate fully that a text is a plagiarism of another text, one must show how the text is plagiarizing the other text. Many plagiarism researchers, as well as members of institutional research integrity committees, miss this step. They take the mere identification of textual overlap to be the upper limit of analysis. By stopping short, they leave themselves vulnerable to the typical defenses made—sometimes in bad faith—by academic malefactors and their apologists. Those defenses can include: a claim of independent fortuitous discovery; a claim that one was simply recalling a lecture from memory; a claim that one had cryptomnesia from reading many sources; and the like.

The careful application of the principles of textual criticism, however, which focuses on very particular types of copying errors, can in many cases rule out these standard defenses. Complex features of overlapping texts can be used to prove that one text really is a copy of another. A comprehensive approach to plagiarism must incorporate evidence beyond simple verbatim overlap; the identification of new and subtle forms of evidence of plagiarism is critical. 

Distinctive case studies are required to exhibit the efficacy of newly proposed techniques for proving plagiarism. For this role, I have selected monographs in the sacred sciences (e.g., philosophy, theology, canon law) that are the published versions of doctoral dissertations from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. That university is the major degree-granting institution for many clerics around the world who have ascended to high offices in the Roman Catholic Church. The focus on these monographs as case studies is beneficial for two major reasons. 

First, most studies in research integrity today are pursued from the standpoint of the natural, social, and biomedical sciences. The predominant issues in those fields include data fabrication, data falsification, irreproducible experimental results, publication bias, and shoddy or manipulative statistical methods. From such perspectives, the significance of plagiarism is sometimes downplayed. Frameworks for discussing research integrity are typically modeled after the problems and concerns of those disciplines, which are not always adaptable to research conducted in the humanities or the sacred disciplines.

Yet plagiarism remains the central problem of research integrity in the humanities and sacred disciplines, and it should be treated from the vantage of these disciplines. The discussions of plagiarism in this volume are intended to contribute to establishing a more comprehensive and inclusive model of research integrity with applicability across a broader range of disciplines. It is therefore important to offset any disproportionate influence that other disciplines have carried in contemporary approaches to research integrity. 

Secondly, a focus on the research outputs of a major pontifical university provides an occasion for a detailed examination of the lasting and pernicious effects of plagiarism committed in an ecclesiastical environment. That topic only recently has begun to attract serious scholarly attention . By using new techniques for proving plagiarism, we see apparent research integrity failures on a large scale at a major institution of Catholic higher education. 

The Code of Canon Law uses the term disciplinae sacrae (sacred disciplines) to designate academic fields of special significance for the formation of leaders in the Roman Catholic Church. Principal among them are philosophy, theology, and canon law. An advanced degree in one of these disciplines, awarded by an ecclesiastical institution, is required to hold various curial offices and academic positions in Catholic seminaries. The possession of the terminal degree—a doctorate—is regarded as an optimal credential for some of the highest offices, including the episcopacy. It is therefore useful to explore the repercussions for the Church and the academy in cases where the crucial credential of a doctoral degree appears to be unwarranted due to substantial plagiarism in the doctoral dissertation.

Although many ecclesiastical institutions of higher education exist worldwide, the narrow focus on the Pontifical Gregorian University is justified due to the institution’s unparalleled role in the formation of priests who later go on to hold high offices in the Catholic Church. Nearly one out of every four of the more than 5,000 Catholic bishops around the world are counted among its alumni. The institution counts over one-third of the College of Cardinals as former students. Sixteen previous popes are graduates or former faculty members of the Pontifical Gregorian University, including seven of the last twelve.

My work used principles of textual criticism to examine nine published monographs by clerics that originated in doctoral-level dissertations at the Pontifical Gregorian University. These published dissertations, all written in English, are treated as distinctive examples of the quality of the research conducted during a recent period at the university and then distributed—via publication—to the larger world of learning. Chosen from the disciplinae sacrae of theology, philosophy, canon law, and missiology, these published dissertations appeared in print from 1995-2014 under the aegis of the university press of the Gregorian University. Together they represent the major areas of research for which the Roman institution is best known.

A decade or more has passed since each of the nine published doctoral dissertations appeared in print. This extended period allows for an examination of the laudatory reception each has received in the downstream research literature within their respective academic disciplines. This time frame also allows for a consideration of the beneficial effects that high academic qualifications—the doctoral degree and the published dissertation—bestow on their possessors over the span of their careers. A pontifical doctorate and a published dissertation are key credentials for promotion to academic and ecclesiastical leadership positions. The authors of record (or stated authors) for these published dissertations have acquired various positions in seminaries and diocesan curiae throughout the worldwide church. So far, a third of them (3/9) have been elevated to the episcopacy to lead dioceses around the globe. The number seems likely to increase.

Yet culpability is not placed in toto on the authors of record of the published dissertations. Although responsibility rests primarily with doctoral students, plagiarism in dissertations cannot be successful on a wide scale unless it is permitted (either by encouragement or negligence) by those tasked with academic institutional oversight. Rectors, academic deans, dissertation advisors, university professors, and thesis committee members, among others, must be regarded as complicit if plagiarism is found to occur on a significant scale within an institution.

One may reasonably question whether a university adequately mentors doctoral students and genuinely promotes doctoral studies, when substantially defective dissertations are found in proportionately high numbers. Widespread plagiarism is a systemic failure involving lapses and omissions by individuals throughout the hierarchy of an institution who have not provided reliable oversight of doctoral students and who have neglected to provide truthful evaluations of institutional research products.

Michael Dougherty  is Professor & Sr. Ruth Caspar Chair in Philosophy at Ohio Dominican University and the author of  New Techniques for Proving Plagiarism: Case Studies from the Sacred Disciplines at the Pontifical Gregorian University .

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a  tax-deductible contribution to support our work , subscribe to our free  daily digest   or  paid weekly update ,  follow us  on Twitter , like us  on Facebook , or add us to your  RSS reader . If you find a retraction that’s  not in The Retraction Watch Database , you can  let us know here . For comments or feedback, email us at [email protected] .

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