Editorial: Plagiarism Is For Losers
Jeff Offutt · Software Testing Verification and Reliability · 2014
This issue presents two useful applications of formal modeling. The first paper, Specification guidelines to avoid the state space explosion problem, by Groote, Kouters, and Osaiweran, give a technique for security testing of firewalls. They formally model firewalls, and then combine testing with a proof technique to verify the correctness of the implemented firewall. (Recommended by Alan Hartman.) The second paper, Formal firewall conformance testing: An application of test and proof techniques, by Brucker, Brügger, and Wolff, is based on years of experience building state-based models. The authors have found that some models make testing and verification much easier than others, and give guidance for designing useful models. (Recommended by Ronald Olsson.) This editorial explores different forms of plagiarism, discusses why people plagiarize, and offers strategies for avoiding unintentional plagiarism. The amount of plagiarism detected by STVR's editorial board has increased significantly in recent years. This increase might be due to multiple factors. Like most journals, STVR now uses an automated plagiarism detector that searches tens of thousands of papers for similarities. The increase might also be partly due to the general globalization of SWE research 1. Still, another factor is that STVR receives more submissions than in the past. Regardless of why, we now desk-reject almost a dozen submissions to STVR every year. This editorial discusses plagiarism to help potential authors understand what plagiarism is and how to avoid it. I will address authorship rules in more details in a future editorial. Next, I want to discuss why people plagiarize, then suggest ways to avoid plagiarizing. I discuss intentional and unintentional plagiarizing separately. This list, like the last, is certainly not complete, but is intended to be a representative sample of common reasons. Intentional plagiarizing is the more troubling morally, and multiple reasons may come into play. People sometimes intentionally plagiarize out of desperation. They are required to publish and, for whatever reason, do not have the ability to write publishable papers. Others plagiarize because they simply lack ethics. They have very little sense of right and wrong, or perhaps are outright sociopaths. Another possible reason is simply poor judgment—they believe they would not be caught. Although resources on the Internet can make it easier to find material to plagiarize, that same access makes it easier to detect plagiarism. Sadly, some people simply follow their PhD advisor's lead, thinking plagiarizing is normal behavior. Perhaps the saddest reason is when people simply cannot write, so they copy text from those who can. This probably explains a lot of type 4 plagiarism. Additionally, some lose faith in the review and publication system, lose respect for the process, and plagiarize simply to satisfy the publishing requirements. Of course, people also plagiarize unintentionally. Perhaps the most common reason is by not understanding plagiarism. Some PhD students do not understand plagiarism when they start the research work, so it becomes the advisor's responsibility to teach them. My university has recently started a seminar series for PhD students on ethical issues related to research, which includes specific discussions on plagiarism and authorship. Some authors unintentionally plagiarize out of forgetfulness. They read something, forgot they read it, and later thought they invented it. This is why we must keep good notes! Another reason is working with the wrong co-authors; their co-authors plagiarized, and they did not notice. Sometimes people are simply ignorant; they do not know how to properly quote, and thus indicate that something was theirs when in fact they meant to give credit. Others plan poorly, are late for a deadline, and take a shortcut by copying text from another source. Finally, some try to paraphrase someone else's words, and believe that changing a few words in a paragraph puts the paragraph in ‘their own words.’ Regardless of the reason, it is important to point out that journal editors usually cannot know why a submitter plagiarizes. From a journal's point of view, plagiarism is almost always considered to be knowing, willful, and intentional. We have ‘one strike and you’re out' policies. If someone is caught plagiarizing once, we will not allow that person to publish in the journal again. Scientists' most important asset is their reputations, and being caught plagiarizing is often the end of a research career. It is considered a firing offense throughout the world. In US universities, it is one of the most common reasons why tenure is revoked. Plagiarism can also be a time bomb that goes off years or decades later. Recently, several German politicians lost their jobs after plagiarism was discovered in their PhD dissertations 4. In addition to avoiding plagiarism yourself, most scientists agree that we have a moral obligation to report plagiarism when we observe it. I would certainly be very disappointed if someone I respected knew about plagiarism in a paper submitted to STVR and decided not to tell me. Not informing a journal editor of a case of plagiarism is tantamount to condoning plagiarism, and some even consider not reporting plagiarism to be another form of plagiarism. When in doubt, include a reference to where you got your idea. I am pretty sure no paper has ever been rejected from STVR for ‘too many references.’ Thanks to Paul Ammann, Lionel Briand, Mark Harman, and Rob Hierons for providing helpful comments on an early draft of this editorial.