IL and information ethics: How to avoid plagiarism in scientific papers?

Abstract

One of the most common misconducts in science is plagiarism. It has negative consequences for authors, editors and scholarly journals, causing loss of credibility, reputation, readers and finances. Academic ethics can be assured by proper education, good codes of ethics and detailed instructions to authors of scientific papers. This paper analyses contents of author’s guidelines in Croatian journals in the field of social sciences. The analysis tries to ascertain whether the journals mention and/or explain ethical issues in their instructions to authors. The paper also analyses content of codes of ethics of Croatian universities, with the accent on plagiarism. A conclusion is made about the use of proper protection mechanisms in Croatian academic community when it comes to misconducts in science, especially plagiarism. Recommendations for universities and publishers on what to include in their codes of ethics and instructions to authors are given.