IETE Technical Review

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Being Wary of Plagiarism

M. Jagadesh Kumar

To cite this article: M. Jagadesh Kumar (2008) Being Wary of Plagiarism, IETE Technical Review,
25:5, 231-233

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Published online: 01 Sep 2014.

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 Editorial
Being Wary of Plagiarism
I nternet has become an unlimited source of information with
easy access. Majority of traditional journals have gone online
with increased visibility. While this is good for all of us, because
we can explore and educate ourselves with the freely available
digital content, there is a downside too – the tendency to copy
and paste this information at will without giving credit to the
source or the original authors. This phenomenon is now well
known as ‘plagiarism’ and is spreading at a fast pace across the
world. Many people indulge in this academic dishonesty out of
ignorance. But there are many who do it intentionally. Students
worldwide are known to copy their assignments or computer
codes from other sources without appropriate reference. This
is a problem that needs to be tackled within an educational
organization by sensitizing the students on how to give proper
credit to the original sources [1]. Unfortunately, even in the best
of the Indian educational institutes, no serious effort is taken to
make the students, who will ultimately become the future authors,
aware of the perils of plagiarism.
The issue of authors committing plagiarism is a more serious
one and if they happen to be from Academic Institutions or
Universities, it is worse. John Maddox says, “Among scholars,
plagiarism is the worst of bad behaviour. In the strict sense, when
it entails the copying out of other people’s words embodying
their ideas, it is not just deception but theft…” [2]. Therefore,
it does have serious consequences to the plagiarist if caught
and the journal, whose image can be tarnished once a plagia-
rized article is published. During the last month, we found that
several manuscripts submitted to IETE Technical Review were
plagiarized. When contacted, one author responded by pleading
ignorance about plagiarism, apologized profusely, and promised
not to repeat it. But how do you avoid it when you are ignorant
of the meaning and consequences of plagiarism? The bottom
line is that if you wish to be a good author and avoid plagiarism,
educate yourself.
IETE Technical Review mostly publishes review and tutorial
articles. Therefore, the submitted papers will obviously use the
contents of published papers either by the same authors or other
researchers. How do we make sure that we write a truly profes-
sional review article on a given topic without violating the ethical
publication principles? The objective of this editorial is therefore
to first understand what plagiarism means and how to be wary
of it. We will also refer you to some resources that are freely
available for training yourself about avoiding plagiarism.
There are multiple definitions for plagiarism because “it is
not an easy job to draw a dividing line between fair use and
plagiarism” [1]. Since plagiarism is on the rise, it is important for
us to have a clear picture of it. IEEE defines plagiarism on its
website [3] as “the reuse of someone else’s prior ideas, processes,
IETE TECHNICAL REVIEW | Vol 25 | ISSUE 5 | SEP-OCT 2008
results, or words without explicitly acknowledging the original
author and the source.” What it means is that either deliberately
or otherwise, if we do not acknowledge the original source, we are
committing plagiarism. This is a simple definition to understand.
However, we also need to be aware of self-plagiarism which is
paraphrasing or copying from one’s own published work but
concealing the source of this information. Many authors think
that they do not have to cite the source if they are writing a review
paper based on information obtained from the Internet because
the copied information is from neither a journal nor a conference
publication. Be aware that this is also blatant plagiarism.
The following definition of plagiarism given on the Penn State
University’s website [4] is self-explanatory: “Plagiarism is the act
of stating or implying that another person’s work is your own.
Plagiarism can range from submitting a paper you didn’t write
to omitting key citations. Any action in which you misleadingly
claim an idea as your own when it is not, could constitute pla-
giarism.”
The simple guidelines given on Indiana University’s website [5]
will be useful to all of us which indicate that plagiarism can be
avoided if you give credit whenever you use
• another person’s idea, opinion, or theory;
• any facts, statistics, graphs, drawings – any pieces of informa-
tion – that are not common knowledge;
• quotations of another person’s actual spoken or written
words; or
• paraphrase of another person’s spoken or written words.
The meaning of the word “common knowledge” given above
should be understood clearly. If you write, “India’s population
is 1.2 billion”, that is common knowledge and you do not have
to cite any source. However, if you are giving information on
how many of these people are employed and their numbers in
each profession, that is not common knowledge and the source
of this data must be cited. Indiana’s website [5] also provides
you examples of how to quote and paraphrase others ideas and
spoken or written words by explaining the meaning of quoting
and paraphrasing as given below:
• Quotation involves using someone’s words. When you
quote, place the passage you are using in quotation marks,
and document the source according to a standard docu-
mentation style.
• Paraphrasing involves using someone’s ideas, but putting
them in your own words. This is probably the skill you will
use most when incorporating sources into your writing.
Although you use your own words to paraphrase, you must
still acknowledge the source of the information.
If you wish to know how to paraphrase others work without
231
 Jagadesh Kumar M: Plagiarism
the danger of committing plagiarism, please take a test designed
by Arnold Sanders of Goucher College [6]. Another useful site
to learn more about citing sources, quoting, paraphrasing, and
summarizing is the Simon Fraser University’s web-resource on
plagiarism [7]. Here you can also take some online quizzes to test
your understanding of issues related to plagiarism.
The Virtual Academic Integrity Laboratory (VAIL) is a very
useful portal that you should visit for educating yourself about
plagiarism [8]. You will find tutorials on the following topics:
1. Defining academic integrity, plagiarism and cheating.
2. Tips for avoiding plagiarism.
3. Teaching proper documentation practices.
4. Providing information about academic integrity policies.
You will also benefit by reading the contents posted on an inter-
esting website I came across recently [9]. There are useful articles
on this website on several topics such as: types of plagiarism,
preventing plagiarism, how to cite sources, etc; it also provides
printable handouts. Please have a look at the May 2008 issue of
IEEE Transactions on Education which is a special issue on ‘plagia-
rism’ and contains a large number of useful papers. Perhaps, this
is the first instance of a professional journal bringing out a special
issue on plagiarism highlighting the urgent need for awareness
dissemination if we want to contain plagiarism.
There have been several cases of highly publicized plagiarism
involving well-known academics. When caught red handed, these
persons have no other option but to publicly apologize for their
behaviour. Abu Baker of University of Louisiana at Lafayette has
recently published a paper in IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine
which has been found to be plagiarized [10]. He publicly apolo-
gized for this academic dishonesty – “I take full responsibility and
apologize for an act of academic dishonesty and inappropriate
copying of someone else’s work” [11]. Several cases of plagiarism
are described in the website of famous plagiarists [12]. Society for
Scientific Values [13] is a voluntary organization in India which
looks into the plagiarism and highlights them on their website.
Please visit this portal to know about some of the well-known
Indian authors’ alleged plagiarism cases. The plagiarism case, in
2006, in a book co-authored by Dr. Mashelkar, former head of
CSIR, and his unconditional apology are now public knowledge
[14]. These examples clearly illustrate that you will ultimately
be caught and exposed if you practice plagiarism whether it
is intentional or otherwise. We do not think any of our IETE
Technical Review authors would like to go through such a hor-
rifying experience.
At IETE Technical Review, we will do everything possible to
detect plagiarism. We do have digital tools integrated into the
online-submission system to detect plagiarism. Our editors and
reviewers are extremely sensitive to the problem of plagiarism. At
the time of submission, if our editorial board or the reviewer finds
evidence of plagiarism, the paper will be immediately withdrawn
from the online submission system, the author will be debarred
from submitting to any of the IETE Journals for at least three
232
years and a letter will be sent to the Head of the organization
where the author works for taking appropriate action. In spite of
our best efforts, if a plagiarized paper gets published, readers of
IETE Technical Review can help us and contact us immediately
with evidence of plagiarism in our published papers. There are
free tools available such as Déjà vu [15] and eBLAST [16] for
finding cases of plagiarism in published papers. Please do use
these free tools and be the whistle blowers for IETE Technical
Review in controlling the menace of plagiarism. If a published
paper is found to be plagiarized, the IETE Publications Com-
mittee will take appropriate action against such authors. Actions
may include debarring the author from submitting articles to any
of the IETE Journals forever, withdrawing the plagiarized article
from the online version of the journal, publicizing the plagiarist’s
details on the journal’s website, and writing to the Head of the
organization where the author is employed.
The intention of this editorial is not to create panic among the
authors. It is only to remind them of their responsibilities as
authors so that they effectively communicate without violating
the ethical standards that we hold so dear to our heart.
If you have any comments, I would like to hear from you.
References
[1] R. G. Paredes, J. A. Sanchez, and A. Razo, “Drawing the Line between
Fair Use and Plagiarism for Digital Documents,” Eighth Mexican
International Conference on Current Trends in Computer Science,
24-28 Sept. 2007, pp.113 – 122.
[2] J. Maddox, “Plagiarism is worse than mere theft,” Nature, Vol.376,
pp.721 – 721, 31 Aug 1995.
[3] http://www.ieee.org/web/publications/rights
[4] http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/cyberplag/cyberplagexamples.
html
[5] http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets.shtml
[6] http://faculty.goucher.edu/writingprogram/sgarrett/plags1.asp
[7] http://www.lib.sfu.ca/researchhelp/tutorials/interactive/plagiarism/
tutorial/table-of-contents.htm
[8] http://www-apps.umuc.edu/forums/pageshow.php?forumid=3
[9] www.plagiarism.org
[10] A.Baker, S. Ghosh, A. Kumar, and M. Bayoumi, “LDPC Decoder:
A Cognitive Radio Perspective for Next Generation (XG)
Communication,” IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine, Vol.7, Issue
3, pp. 24-37, Third quarter 2007.
[11] A. Baker, S. Ghosh, A. Kumar and M. Bayoumi, “Apology
[Plagiarism],” IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine, Vol.8, Issue 3,
pp. 95-95, Third Quarter 2008.
[12] http://www.famousplagiarists.com/
[13] http://www.scientificvalues.org/
[14] http://www.scientificvalues.org/Mashelkar.htm
[15] http://spore.swmed.edu/dejavu
[16] http://invention.swmed.edu/etblast
M. Jagadesh Kumar
Editor-in-Chief, IETE Technical Review
Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT, Hauz Khas,
New Delhi – 110 016, India. E-mail: eictr@ietejournals.org
IETE TECHNICAL REVIEW | Vol 25 | ISSUE 5 | SEP-OCT 2008
 Jagadesh Kumar M: Plagiarism
AUTHOR
M Jagdesh Kumar (M’95–SM’99) was born in Mamidala,
Andhra Pradesh, India. He received the M.S. and Ph.D.
degrees in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute
of Technology (IIT), Madras, India.
From 1991 to 1994, he performed postdoctoral research
on the modeling and processing of high-speed bipolar
transistors in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada. While with the University of
Waterloo, he also did a research on amorphous-silicon TFTs. From July 1994
to December 1995, he was initially with the Department of Electronics and
Electrical Communication Engineering, IIT, Kharagpur, India, and then joined
the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT, New Delhi, India, where he
became an Associate Professor in July 1997 and a Full Professor in January
2005. He has authored three book chapters and more than 125 publications
in refereed journals and conference proceedings. He is the Editor-in-Chief of
IETE Technical Review. He also serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal
of Computational Electronics, Recent Patents on Nanotechnology, Recent
Patents on Electrical Engineering, Journal of Low Power Electronics, and
Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. His teaching has often been
IETE TECHNICAL REVIEW | Vol 25 | ISSUE 5 | SEP-OCT 2008
rated as outstanding by the Faculty Appraisal Committee of IIT Delhi. His
research interests include nanoelectronic devices, modeling and simulation
for nanoscale applications, integrated-circuit technology, and power
semiconductor devices.
Dr. Kumar is a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering and
the Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers (IETE) India.
He is an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Electron Devices Society
(EDS). He is also a member of the EDS Publications Committee and EDS
Educational Activities Committee. He is an Editor for the IEEE TRANSACTIONS
ON ELECTRON DEVICES. He is the lead guest editor of the joint special
issue of IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices and IEEE Transactions on
Nanotechnology on “Nanowire Transistors: Modeling, Device Design, and
Technology” (November 2008 issue). He has extensively reviewed for different
international journals. He was the recipient of the 29th IETE Ram LalWadhwa
GoldMedal for his distinguished contribution in the field of semiconductor
device design and modeling and the 2008 IBM Faculty Award. He was the first
recipient of ISA-VSI TechnoMentor Award given by the India Semiconductor
Association in recognition of a distinguished Indian academician or researcher
for playing a significant role as a Mentor and Researcher.
E-mail: eictr@ietejournals.org
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