Writer's Guide
Plagiarism
What is Plagiarism?
Academic honesty or academic integrity is a set of values held by the academic community. These values are defined by the International Center for Academic Integrity as "commitment, even in the face of adversity, to...honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility."
There are four basic types of academic dishonesty:
- cheating,
- facilitation,
- plagiarism, and
- fabrication.
Sometimes plagiarism is used as a catch-all term for all kinds of academic dishonesty. Plagiarism is using somebody else's ideas or expression of ideas (writing, art, music, speech, etc.) and representing them as your own.
More specifically, plagiarism is the "unattributed use of a source of information that is not considered common knowledge. Three acts are considered plagiarism: (1) failing to cite quotations and borrowed ideas, (2) failing to enclose borrowed language in quotation marks, and (3) failing to put summaries and paraphrases in your own words."
- Diana Hacker, A Pocket Style Manual
Strategies for Avoiding Plagiarism
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Read Common Tips For Avoiding Plagiarism from a health sciences perspective.
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Review UW's Student Academic Conduct statement and make sure you understand it.
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Plan ahead. Give yourself enough time to plan, research, write, and edit your work.
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Document your research by using citation tools for references and using citation styles as you write.
Faculty can also enable SimCheck by TurnItIn on Canvas to allow students to review similarity reports of their work.
Learn more about Artificial Intelligence (AI), Large Language Models (LLMs), and Machine Learning (ML) and how to cite these products.
Recommended Resources
Additional Plagiarism Information
- Avoiding Plagiarism (Purdue Online Writing Lab)
- Plagiarism (University of North Carolina)
- Academic Integrity Tutorial (University of Maryland University College)
Practice Tests
- Plagiarism Self Test (Western Carolina University)
- Exercises from Recognizing and Avoiding Plagiarism (Cornell University)
- How to Recognize Plagiarism practice test (Indiana University's School of Education)
Adapted from UW Bothell's Academic Integrity and Plagiarism Prevention Resources
Research Integrity
Research Misconduct Resources
- UW Office of Research Misconduct ProceedingsLearn more from the Office of Research Misconduct Proceedings (ORMP), which "coordinates the University’s handling of allegations of research misconduct against members of the University community, in consultation and cooperation with the University’s schools, colleges, and campuses. Research misconduct is defined to be fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting research results."
- Authorship and contributorship of unpublished data: Dealing with concernsGuidance from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
- Authorship and contributorship of published data: Dealing with concernsGuidance from COPE.
- Addressing concerns about systematic manipulation of the publication processGuidance from COPE.
- Recommendations for the Investigation of Research MisconductHandbook from the European Network of Research Integrity Offices (ENRIO) consoritum, the European Network of Research Ethics and Research Integrity (ENERI), and the European Commission.
- The good fight: Winning the war against research misconductAugust 3, 2023, post in Research Professional News by James Brooks.
- The detection and management of attempted fraud during an online randomised trialAugust 4, 2023, article in Trials by Thomas A. Willis, Alexandra Wright-Hughes, Clare Skinner, Amanda J. Farrin, Suzanne Hartley, Rebecca Walwyn, Ana Weller, Mohamed Althaf, Stephanie Wilson, Chris P. Gale, and Robbie Foy.
Codes of Ethics and Further Guidance
- UW Research Ethics: The Belmont Report"All UW human subjects research is guided by the statement of ethical principles called the Belmont Report. This guidance is intended to present human subjects regulatory concepts within the context of the Belmont Ethical Principles."
- Code of Ethics for Medical Research Publication: Principles for Publication ProfessionalsCode by the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP).
- Ethics Web ResourcesResources gathered by the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).
- AMWA-EMWA-ISMPP Joint Position Statement on the Role of Professional Medical WritersMarch 2017 statement in Medical Writing by the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA), the European Medical Writers Association (EMWA), and the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP).
- How people decide who is correct when groups of scientists disagreeJuly 28, 2023 article in Risk Analysis: An International Journal by Branden B. Johnson, Marcus Mayorga, Nathan F. Dieckmann.
- Research series: Increasing value, reducing wasteJanuary 8, 2014 series from the Lancet journals. Request full text via Interlibrary Loan (ILL).
Series includes:
- How to increase value and reduce waste when research priorities are set;
- Increasing value and reducing waste in research design, conduct, and analysis;
- Increasing value and reducing waste in biomedical research regulation and management;
- Increasing value and reducing waste: addressing inaccessible research;
- Reducing waste from incomplete or unusable reports of biomedical research; and
- more.
- How to increase value and reduce waste when research priorities are set;
Human Subjects Research
- Human Subjects Division of the UW Office of ResearchLearn whether you need an IRB (Institutional Review Board) review and more.
- UW Human Subjects Protections Training"Researchers, including research study staff and students, working with human subjects or data and samples from humans must sometimes complete training in human subjects protections in order to meet the requirements of the organizations they are affiliated with or of funding organizations."
- Decision Tool: Am I Doing Human Subjects Research?NIH Grants & Funding tool for determining if you are doing human subjects research. Be sure to also complete the steps from the UW Office of Research: Human Subjects Division.
- Grants for Research Using Human Subjects from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)"Advice and information to help you determine whether your research is considered human subjects, and if it is, how to understand and comply with regulations at all phases of application and award, including NIAID [National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases] requirements."
Decolonizing and Improving Publishing
- AI can crack double blind peer review – should we still use it?August 8, 2023, London School of Economics and Political Science blog post by Leonard Bauersfeld, Angel Romero, Manasi Muglikar, and Davide Scaramuzza.
- Decolonising publications: Reflecting on the meaning of peer in ‘peer review’August 28, 2023, International Council of Museums (ICOM) news post by Laura Phillips.
- Statement Against White Appropriation of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color’s LaborSeptember 3, 2021, WOC + LIB (women of color (WOC) within librarianship) joint statement by Alexandria Brown, James Cheng, Isabel Espinal, Brittany Paloma Fiedler, Joyce Gabiola, Sofia Leung, Nisha Mody, Alanna Aiko Moore, Teresa Y. Neely, and Peace Ossom-Williamson and co-signed by Black folks, Indigenous folks, and People of Color.
- The downside to women academics’ ethical publishing choicesDecember 2, 2023, University World News article by W Benedikt Schmal.