Plagiarism in scientific writing: words or ideas?

Plagiarism refers to the act of “appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit” (1). Most academic researchers reach a consensus that plagiarism is a serious breach of publication ethics (2). Plagiarism has different forms but can be categorized into two general distinct categories – plagiarism of ideas and plagiarism of text (verbatim). No doubt, plagiarism of ideas is a blatant act of misconduct. Plagiarism of text and recycling of words are also a serious fault in humanities and literature where the essence of work and novelty are wordings and eloquence of the text (1). But, what about science where the essence of the work is the originality of the scientific content no matter how eloquent it is presented (3).