1.What is plagiarism?
When the original words / sentences / phrases / ideas of another person has been used without giving due credit and claiming them as your own, it is considered as plagiarism.
2.What is copyright violation / infringement?
When the legal and exclusive rights of a person over his work has been violated by another without due permission it is considered as copyright infringement. In other words, if copyrighted material is used by another person in his own production without due permission from copyright holder it is called as copyright infringement.
3.What are the differences between plagiarism and copyright infringement?
| S.No | Plagiarism | Copyright Infringement |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Includes copying content from both copyrighted and non-copyrighted materials without giving due credit to original source. | Involves content only those that are protected by Copyright Laws. Does not include contents in public domain. |
| 2 | Not unlawful, although unethical | Unlawful and unethical |
| 3 | Content can be reproduced by making it clear that it is reproduced from another source by use of inverted quotes, italicising the texts, and provided reference to the original source. | Content can be reproduced by obtaining permission from the holder of copyrights and mentioning the source appropriately and adequately. |
4.What is the relationship between similarity index in iThenticate and Plagiarism?
Similarity Index in iThenticate gives an estimation of degree of similarity the manuscript has with other published materials. A similarity need not necessarily mean plagiarism. However, plagiarisms are covered by similarity index. Usually, if the similarity index is high, the probability of presence of plagiarism is high in the manuscript.
5.Commonly used phrases and words are highlighted as similarities in iThenticate resulting in high similarity index. How can this be acceptable to label a manuscript as plagiarised?
A manuscript cannot be labelled as plagiarised based on similarity index alone. Every manuscript must be thoroughly scrutinized manually using the aid of the software to reach to the identified similarities.
6.Can I use contents from my previous publications in my current manuscript? Will it still be considered as plagiarism?
No. You cannot use contents from your previous publications. Such plagiarism can fall under the category of auto-plagiarism or self-plagiarism. Usually, the publishers would possess the copyrights for the published article and these forms of plagiarism also violate copyright laws.
7.What is the difference between auto-plagiarism and self-plagiarism?
Auto-plagiarism: If a person uses full or a part of his own work which has been published earlier, without indicating the original source, it is called auto-plagiarism.
Self-plagiarism: If a person uses full or part of his own work which has been published earlier, without indicating the original source, and with the intention of progressing his career or achieving personal gain, it is called self-plagiarism.
8.What are the consequences of plagiarism and how can I protect myself from plagiarism?
The consequences of plagiarism are many fold. It can be in the form of loss of reputation, academic repercussions and legal consequences if copyright violation is involved.
A few general guidelines to protect yourself from issues of plagiarism
- Paraphrase the sentence instead of modifying few words in a sentence.
- Use softwares to check for plagiarism before submission of manuscripts.
- Use softwares to look for unintentional similarities rather than to make sure that intentional plagiarism is not detected
- Read and write on your own. Avoid copy and paste function in preparation of manuscripts
- Cite references where necessary without fail
- Use quotes when writing sentences verbatim from another source
9.What are the limitations of iThenticate software?
It cannot detect similarities from sources that are not available in internet
It cannot detect plagiarism of images or copyright violations
Common phrases gets highlighted as similarities resulting in a higher similarity index
10. What are the resources of iThenticate?
Published research articles (from more than 590 scientific, technical and medical publishers)
Database with more than one million abstracts and citations from PubMed
Twenty thousand research titles from EBSCOhost and Gale InfoTrac OneFile
Web crawler of iThenticate indexes more than 10 million web pages daily and possess a total of more than 50 billion web pages.