Do Journals' Author Guidelines Tell Us What We Need to Know about Plagiarism?

Abstract:Author guidelines for submitting manuscripts to journals play an essential role in communicating academic ethics and standards to prospective authors and in ensuring the originality of the articles that journals publish. The purpose of this study was to conduct a cross-journal analysis of author guidelines to see how they address plagiarism. One hundred author guidelines were selected randomly and were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. The findings revealed that the guidelines varied in the extent to which they covered plagiarism. Among the elements of plagiarism addressed, the four most common were duplicate publication, copyright, the definition of plagiarism of others' work, and proper citation. The allowance for reproduction of language ranged along a spectrum from very strict (no verbatim copying of another's words) to less strict (no verbatim copying of significant portions of others' work). Although self-plagiarism is the most common form of plagiarism, it was addressed relatively less often than plagiarism of others' work.