INFORMATION ON PLAGIARISM
Definition: A widely accepted definition of plagiarism is "reuse of someone else's prior ideas, processes, results, or words without explicitly acknowledging the original author and source". "Someone" may be others or even yourself.[Source]
SELF-PLAGIARISM IS PLAGIARISM
Regarding this subject there are many opinions, but all scientist and editors agree the plagiarism should not be promoted in scientific publications. Regarding the self-plagiarism problem, Catriona Fennell, director of journal services at Elsevier, said "Sometimes [text reuse] is just unavoidable,". "Really, how many different ways can you say the same thing?" Because scientists tend to study the same topic over many years or even their entire careers, some aspects of their research papers, particularly the literature review and methodology, will be repeated. Once they've figured out how to word it succinctly and accurately, some argue, it's best left unchanged. "You're laying the groundwork for an ongoing discussion [so] making changes might actually be a bad idea," Scanlon said. "It would muddy the waters." [Source]
Steven Shafer, Editor-in-Chief of Anesthesia & Analgesia, said that the publication does not retract papers that only reuse text in the methodology section. "This is a very difficult area," admitted Shafer. While the recently retracted paper contained "multiple areas of duplicated verbatim or nearly verbatim text throughout," he said, not all cases are so straightforward, and each one "must be a judgment call." [Source]
More details on plagiarism may be found by searching the web or on special dedicated pages of the most well-knows journals.
HOW DO WE PROTECT AGAINST PLAGIARISM ?
1. We use automated software programs for checking against plagiarism. The generated reports are carefully checked and confirmed by human, in order to avoid wrong decisions. We do not send plagiarism reports to authors as we do not provide plagiarism checking services.
2. We require all authors to sign a copyright form. As an author, it is your single and own responsibility and you know before sending the paper if it contains or not plagiarized text - you are the author and you signed the copyright transfer form (read again the copyright form to figure out the plagiarism related statements).
3. We have zero tolerance to plagiarism and we apply policies regarding the plagiarizing authors - rejection of all submitted papers is one of them.
We make real efforts to provide services to the authors at a highest possible level, including the web-site, the information for authors, the OpenConf submission interface, etc. The Submission Status interface is one of the most complete of its' kind (you may find out even the estimate issue where your paper will be published, if accepted). Based on this, we require from your part not to send plagiarized texts as it is a waste of time for both parts. As the number of plagiarized papers we received in the last time period increased at a hard to imagine level (more than 60 % of the total papers evaluated for an issue were rejected for plagiarism) the Editorial Board decided to create a "banned author list" containing the names and E-mail addresses of all plagiarizing authors. Based on reviewers recommendation the most severe cases will not be able to submit new papers.
WHAT SOFTWARE DO WE USE ?
Many authors asked us "What software do you use to check my paper ?". We tried over the time many programs and methods, but we cannot disclose the internal check procedure details. We assure you every submitted paper is verified with at least two programs, followed by a human check of all reports and several manual checks over the Internet. Reviewers also add valuable contribution to this when they evaluate the paper (in several cases, hopefully not so many, the software reports were clean, but the reviewers found in documents - not available in electronic form (books, etc.), plagiarized sections. Coming back to the question, the answer is "Some software from the list below.":
- ArticleChecker
- Blackboard/SafeAssign
- Catch It First
- Compilatio
- Copyscape Premium
- Docoloc
- Ephorus
- GenuineText
- Grammarly
- iPlagiarismCheck
- PercentDupe
- PlagAware
- Plagiarisma
- Plagiarism Detector
- Plagiarism Finder
- PlagiarismChecker
- PlagiarismSearch
- plagium
- PlagScan
- StrikePlagiarism
- The Plagairism Checker Premium
- Turnitin
- UN.CO.VER
- Urkund
- Viper
WE DISCOVERED YOU. WHAT'S NEXT ?
We define three levels of plagiarism:
- Level One pertains to the uncredited verbatim copying of a full paper, or the verbatim copying of a major portion (> 20%), or verbatim copying within more than one paper by the same author(s);
- Level Two pertains to the uncredited verbatim copying of a large portion or individual elements (Paragraph(s), Sentence(s), Illustration(s), etc.) (between 11 and 20%) or verbatim copying within one or more than one paper by the same author(s);
- Level Three pertains to uncredited improper paraphrasing of pages or paragraphs uncredited verbatim copying of individual elements (Paragraph(s), Sentence(s), Illustration(s), etc.) resulting in a significant portion (up to 10%) within a paper or credited verbatim copying of a major portion of a paper without clear delineation (e.g., quotes or indents);
Depending on the level of plagiarism identifyed in your paper, actions will be taken:
- Notice of violation;
- Rejection and return of papers in review and queues;
- Prohibition from publishing in AECE for up to 5 (five) years.
YOU ARE TOTALLY DISSAPOINTED. BELIEVE US, SO DO WE !
From time to time there are plagiarizing authors sending us angry E-mail messages telling we will have to pay for accusing them as "plagiarizing author" as we discredited them. A common phrase is "I am very depressed when I learned the reply ... I could accept the rejection decision but could not accept comment of plagiarism.". We invite all authors to read carefully the Copyright Transfer Form and to check the paper before sending it. Sometimes authors send the same paper to more than one journal. This is expressly prohibited by the Copyright form. If the exact paper is published before we are able to process your submission, it is clear we will identify the double submission. In order to avoid further problems we urge you to send an E-mail to us and withdraw your paper. If you already published a very similar paper on a conference, it is almost sure you cannot publish it again (even you modified 25% of the text). Explanations like "That paper is also written by me. I forgot whether I signed a copyright to the conference organization." could not be considered as serious.
As stated in the Submission Status interface "Information displayed on this page resulted from anonymously reviewing your submission, may be used only by the author of the paper and could not be made publicly available by any means without the written permission from the Editor.". So, only the corresponding author is able to see the information about the plagiarism in the paper.
Some authors are so self-confident as they tell us "I will issue the two papers in Internet, and hope the scholars over the world to determine whether there is plagiarism.". This is a good idea as we also consider other opinions are always valuable for evaluating your work. As we said above, we make real efforts in order to provide error free evaluations to all submitted papers and we are sure our past decisions were error free. Coming back to the story, the respective author ended the conversation like this "I hope we could be friends.". Nothing to comment more on the subject.
Note: All quoted text is extracted from real messages we received.
CONCLUSION
As an author, we require you to follow the academic publishing rules and you will never ever need to read this page or others dealing with this very sensitive subject. We assure all authors we will review with extreme care their works. By respecting yourself you respect the others. And vice-versa !
IMPORTANT
From the time you upload the paper file for the first time to the end of the evaluation process, and just several days before the publication day, we make plagiarism checks. The rejection for plagiarism decision may occur in any phase, even if your paper was accepted for publication, even after you paid the publication fee (if you paid the publication fee and your paper is clearly identified as plagiarizing other papers, you will not be eligible for a refund).
Copyright ©2001-2012
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Stefan cel Mare University of Suceava, Romania
All rights reserved: Advances in Electrical and Computer Engineering is a registered trademark of the Stefan cel Mare University of Suceava. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, photocopied, recorded or archived, without the written permission from the Editor. When authors submit their papers for publication, they agree that the copyright for their article be transferred to the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Stefan cel Mare University of Suceava, Romania, if and only if the articles are accepted for publication. The copyright covers the exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute the article, including reprints and translations.
Permission for other use: The copyright owner's consent does not extend to copying for general distribution, for promotion, for creating new works, or for resale. Specific written permission must be obtained from the Editor for such copying. Direct linking to files hosted on this web-site is strictly prohibited.
Disclaimer: Whilst every effort is made by the publishers and editorial board to see that no inaccurate or misleading data, opinions or statements appear in this journal, they wish to make it clear that all information and opinions formulated in the articles, as well as linguistic accuracy, are the sole responsibility of the author.
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Stefan cel Mare University of Suceava, Romania
All rights reserved: Advances in Electrical and Computer Engineering is a registered trademark of the Stefan cel Mare University of Suceava. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, photocopied, recorded or archived, without the written permission from the Editor. When authors submit their papers for publication, they agree that the copyright for their article be transferred to the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Stefan cel Mare University of Suceava, Romania, if and only if the articles are accepted for publication. The copyright covers the exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute the article, including reprints and translations.
Permission for other use: The copyright owner's consent does not extend to copying for general distribution, for promotion, for creating new works, or for resale. Specific written permission must be obtained from the Editor for such copying. Direct linking to files hosted on this web-site is strictly prohibited.
Disclaimer: Whilst every effort is made by the publishers and editorial board to see that no inaccurate or misleading data, opinions or statements appear in this journal, they wish to make it clear that all information and opinions formulated in the articles, as well as linguistic accuracy, are the sole responsibility of the author.