Policing plagiarism

doi:10.1136/bmj.39388.668773.47

BMJ 2007;335:963-964 (10 November), doi:10.1136/bmj.39388.668773.47

Feature

Policing plagiarism

Michael Cross, freelance journalist

London

michaelcross@fastmail.fm

The internet has made both copying other people's work and detectingplagiarism much easier. Michael Cross looks at some of the toolsused to tackle plagiarism

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

In the internet age, copying someone else's work can be as simpleas clicking and dragging a computer mouse over a few plausibleparagraphs. By the same token, the world wide web makes fraudeasy to detect. Over the past decade, a range of software productshas become available for detecting plagiarism, especially bystudents. However, experts are questioning whether Britain'sstrategy for detecting academic fraud is the right one for catchingthe most damaging types of misconduct.

There is no evidence that plagiarism is becoming more prevalentin research. But there is no doubt that plagiarism happens,perhaps because of mindsets acquired in education.¹ The Committeeon Publication Ethics, an international forum for editors ofpeer reviewed journals, has discussed "30 or 40" alleged casesof research plagiarism over the past 10 years, says its chairman,Harvey Marcovitch.

The most common type of plagiarism is where a relatively junior. . . [Full text of this article]