Plagiarism and Double Publication

Abstract

Like many of you, I was introduced to the ethics of plagiarism in elementary school, and instruction about what constitutes plagiarism was reinforced throughout my education. There- fore, I was surprised as I started my tenure as Editor of this journal to discover that a fair amount of time would be spent handling issues related to plagiarism and double publication. The SPIE policy concerning plagiarism is clear: SPIE defines plagiarism as the reuse of someone else’s prior ideas, processes, results, or words without explicit attribution of the original author and source. Unauthor- ized use of another researcher’s unpublished data or findings without permission is considered to be a form of plagiarism even if the source is attributed. SPIE con- siders plagiarism in any form, at any level, to be unac- ceptable and a serious breach of professional conduct. In