What is
plagiarism?
-
The American Heritage Dictionary of the
English Language (4th Ed.)
defines plagiarism as "a piece of writing
that has been copied from someone else and is
presented as being your own work."
-
The American Heritage Dictionary (2nd
College Ed.) defines plagiarize as "to take and
use as one's own the writings or ideas
of another."
- IEEE defines plagiarism as the reuse of
someone else's prior ideas, processes,
results, or words without explicitly
acknowledging the original author and
source.
- It should also be noted that certain
corrective actions might apply to the
uncredited reuse of someone else's ideas.
Is there
an acceptable, minimum-level of copying where
crediting the original is not required?
Plagiarism in any form is unacceptable and is
considered a serious breach of professional
conduct, with potentially severe ethical and legal
consequences.
If I
should discover an example of suspected plagiarism
in an IEEE publication, where can I find
information that will help me determine my
best next step?
- If you are an IEEE volunteer
editor (the person responsible for
any IEEE publication is termed "the
editor") and have either discovered on your own
or have been contacted by someone
concerning an apparent case of inappropriate
copying, Section 8.2.4 of the PSPB Operations
Manual provides detailed guidelines for
dealing with instances of plagiarism and
guidelines for proper referencing.
- If you are an IEEE author and
have discovered that your IEEE work was
inappropriately reused either in another
IEEE publication or in a non-IEEE publication,
then you should prepare a "case" by
collecting as much material as possible.
For example,
1) A
marked copy of your original paper showing the
specific text that was reused
2) A
marked copy of the paper in which your uncredited
work appears highlighting your specific
text
3) A written description of the
alleged misconduct
4) Copies of any
communications you might have already had with the
"authors" who may have misused your work.
Once you have collected all the
necessary material, you should submit your
case to the editor of the publication (or the
sponsoring IEEE Society of the publication) in
which the misconduct occurred. If the contact
information for the editor is unavailable, you
should send your claim to the IEEE
Intellectual Property Rights Office (see below).
As an
IEEE volunteer editor, I'm concerned about the
potentially explosive nature of plagiarism. Is
IEEE prepared to support me in the event an
alleged plagiarist should respond with a threatened
lawsuit?
- IEEE maintains liability insurance at
limits deemed appropriate by the IEEE
Insurance Committee for IEEE's current business
activities
- Volunteers are included as "Additional
Insureds" on this insurance.
-
from
IEEE Bylaw I.300.3.
Indemnification. "To the extent permitted by
law, IEEE shall indemnify… each
person who serves as a duly authorized voluntary
member or employee of a duly authorized IEEE
activity… against judgements,
fines, amounts paid in settlement and reasonable
expenses, including without limitation
attorney's fees and expenses, actually and
necessarily incurred by such person in
connection with the defense of any
action, suit, or proceeding to which such person
is made or threatened to be made a party
by virtue of such service…"
