Encouraging editorial flexibility in cases of textual reuse

Abstract

Because many technical descriptions of scientific processes and phenomena are difficult to paraphrase and because an increasing proportion of contributors to the scientific literature are not sufficiently proficient at writing in English, it is proposed that journal editors reexamine their approaches toward instances of textual reuse (similarity). The plagiarism definition by the US Office of Research Integrity (ORI) is more suitable than other definitions for dealing with cases of ostensible plagiarism. Editors are strongly encouraged to examine cases of textual reuse in the context of both, the ORI guidance and the offending authors' proficiency in English. Editors should also reconsider making plagiarism determinations based exclusively on text similarity scores reported by plagiarism detection software.