Comment on Cary Moskovitz’ “Text Recycling in Health Sciences Literature: A Rhetorical Perspective”

The question of covert text recycling from previous publications is discussed. It is argued that, consistent with current guidance, authors may be allowed to covertly recycle a limited amount of their previously published material but mainly at the phrase level and only when it is composed of very complex descriptions laden with technical terms for which there are no suitable substitutes. Authors may recycle longer segments of text using standard scholarly conventions of quotation and attribution or via some other informal means that alerts readers as to the scope of the recycling, thereby ensuring transparency. The use of percent similarity scores as thresholds for acceptable amounts of reuse should be discouraged. Instead, editors should be given the flexibility to evaluate each instance of recycling by taking into account factors such as the technical nature of the recycled text and the language proficiency of the authors. This article is a response to the following commentary: http://researchintegrityjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s41073-017-0025-z.