The Extent and Causes of Academic Text Recycling or ‘Self-Plagiarism’
ResourcesThe Extent and Causes of Academic Text Recycling or ‘Self-Plagiarism’
What is this about?
This is a factual case. This research article first gives a short overview of a prominent case of text recycling or self-plagiarism. From this case, the authors have formulated several hypotheses about the extend and the possible correlates of text recycling in the Dutch scientific fields of biochemistry & molecular cell biology, economics, history, and psychology.
Why is this important?
The current article suggests that text recycling may lead to an unfair advantage in our current scientific working environment, which values the number of publications of an individual researcher and awards grants and funding accordingly. In this system, scientists that engage in text recycling are rewarded more for their work than scientists that do not recycle their texts. Although some argue that text recycling cannot be classified as scientific misconduct, there are now policies and guidelines that contain regulations on text recycling.[1][2] The research discussed here shows that the incidence of problematic text recycling is considerable and higher than other forms of scientific misconduct, such as plagiarism and fabrication. In addition, it gives insight into its possible causes and the influence of policy and journal editors on this practice. Therefore, developing better policies might help to prevent problematic text recycling.
