Self-plagiarism and dual and redundant publications: what is the problem? Commentary on 'Seven ways to plagiarize: handling real allegations of research misconduct'.

As indicated in his paper “Seven Ways to Plagiarize: Handling Real Allegations of Research Misconduct,” former Research Integrity Officer Michael Loui has encountered cases of self-plagiarism. This charge arises periodically and creates controversy within the scientific community. The term “self-plagiarism” is a murky one and merits some in-depth examination both because it is highly charged and because it covers a variety of distinct but related practices/issues. Self-plagiarism is not possible since “plagiarism” refers to claiming the words or ideas of another as one’s own. However, violation of copyright is both possible and problematic since it is a legal concept. Although copyright automatically goes to an author at creation, authors frequently assign their copyright to publishers. The argument in favor of this practice is that it serves the interests of highly mobile academic and research communities to have copyrights assigned to publishers in order to facilitate dissemination of research through the reprinting of a manuscript in an online format or as part of a collection of related articles. Publishers often grant authors the right to use, free of charge, all or part of their articles in other publications with proper attribution. The approbation associated with the charge of self-plagiarism is actually associated with dual or redundant publication. Dual publication is the publication of the same article in more than one journal . Except in translation or as part of a collection (and in either case only with proper attribution) this practice is unacceptable not simply because it is likely to be a copyright violation, but also because it burdens reviewers Self-plagiarism and Dual and Redundant Publications: What Is the Problem? Commentary on ‘Seven Ways to Plagiarize: Handling Real Allegations of Research Misconduct’ (M. C. Loui)