Abstract

Purpose – In general, researchers try to abide by the code ofresearch ethics, but many of them are not fully aware of plagiarism,unintentionally committing the research misconduct whenthey write a research paper. This research aims to introduce researchersa clear and easy guideline at a conference, whichhelps researchers avoid accidental plagiarism by addressing theissue. This research is expected to contribute building a climateand encouraging creative research among scholars. Research design, data, methodology & Results – Plagiarismis considered a sort of research misconduct along with fabricationand falsification. It is defined as an improper usage ofanother author’s ideas, language, process, or results without givingappropriate credit. Plagiarism has nothing to do with examiningthe truth or accessing value of research data, process, orresults. Plagiarism is determined based on whether a researchcorresponds to widely-used research ethics, containing propercitations. Within academia, plagiarism goes beyond the legalboundary, encompassing any kind of intentional wrongful appropriationof a research, which was created by anotherresearchers. In summary, the definition of plagiarism is to steal other people’s creative idea, research model, hypotheses, methods,definition, variables, images, tables and graphs, and usethem without reasonable attribution to their true sources. Thereare various types of plagiarism. Some people assort plagiarisminto idea plagiarism, text plagiarism, mosaic plagiarism, and ideadistortion. Others view that plagiarism includes uncredited usageof another person’s work without appropriate citations, self-plagiarism(using a part of a researcher’s own previous researchwithout proper citations), duplicate publication (publishing a researcher’sown previous work with a different title), unethical citation(using quoted parts of another person’s research withoutproper citations as if the parts are being cited by the currentauthor). When an author wants to cite a part that was previouslydrawn from another source the author is supposed to revealthat the part is re-cited. If it is hard to state all the sourcesthe author is allowed to mention the original source only. Today, various disciplines are developing their own measures toaddress these plagiarism issues, especially duplicate publications,by requiring researchers to clearly reveal true sourceswhen they refer to any other research. Conclusions - Research misconducts including plagiarismhave broad and unclear boundaries which allow ambiguous definitionsand diverse interpretations. It seems difficult for researchersto have clear understandings of ways to avoid plagiarismand how to cite other’s works properly. However, if guidelinesare developed to detect and avoid plagiarism consideringcharacteristics of each discipline (For example, social scienceand natural sciences might be able to have different standardson plagiarism.) and shared among researchers they will likelyhave a consensus and understanding regarding the issue. Particularly, since duplicate publications has frequently appearedmore than plagiarism, academic institutions will need to providepre-warning and screening in evaluation processes in order toreduce mistakes of researchers and to prevent duplicatepublications. What is critical for researchers is to clearly revealthe true sources based on the common citation rules and to onlyborrow necessary amounts of others’ research.