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Plagiarism and text recycling have received increased attention as plagiarism-detection tools are more widely used by publishers, funding agencies, and research institutions. Although the two may produce similar results in a similarity report, they are not equivalent. Plagiarism involves the unattributed use of another person’s work and may constitute research misconduct. Text recycling involves reuse of an author’s own previously disseminated material and must be evaluated in context.
This reflects the fact that plagiarism is considered a form of research misconduct by federal funding agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), and by scientific/scholarly publishers. Indeed, funding agencies can enact significant penalties when plagiarism is uncovered—including requiring the return of awards / funding, and barring of the submission of new proposals (among other sanctions).
Plagiarism may also implicate University academic honesty requirements when it occurs in student academic work submitted for evaluation or credit. Academic honesty processes and the University’s Research Misconduct Policy address different contexts and standards. Questions involving student research, theses, dissertations, or other work that may fall within both contexts should be referred to the appropriate offices for coordination.
The University of Rochester offers and encourages investigators to utilize iThenticate, a plagiarism-detection tool, to screen written material for originality prior to publication.
See the iThenticate page to request an iThenticate account and access training resources.
The NSF-funded Text Recycling Research Project provides best practices, guidelines, and educational resources concerning text recycling.
Plagiarism may constitute research misconduct under the University’s Policy on Research Misconduct when it involves the appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes, results, or words without appropriate credit. Text recycling or self-plagiarism does not, by itself, meet the University’s definition of research misconduct. However, inappropriate text recycling may raise concerns regarding responsible authorship and publication practices, transparency, publisher requirements, copyright, or the integrity of the scholarly record. Questions about text recycling may therefore require consideration of the circumstances, applicable publisher or sponsor requirements, and University guidance.
The Office of Research Integrity, Stewardship, & Ethics (ORISE) team can be reached via direct email, at ORISE@rochester.edu, or at (585) 276-0485. ORISE offices are located at 140 Trustee Road, 5th Floor, Rochester, NY 14627 (Hylan Building).