ORI on Plagiarism

The Office of Research Integrity’s latest newsletter has a bit on their approach to plagiarism (ht writedit).

They start with a point that confuses non-scientists fairly frequently and new trainees as well. The latter are usually flummoxed when they start writing “their” first paper in the lab and the PI says, “Here, start with the Methods and stuff from our last paper”. I can’t tell you how much time gets wasted with trainees trying to “say it in their own words” which is in part due to a well-trained avoidance of anything that smacks of plagiarism. This is why I thought it worth mention. From ORI:

In this new regulation plagiarism is defined as “the appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit.”