Plagiarism in research : a survey of African medical journals
Date
2018-11
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
BMJ Publishing Group
Abstract
Objectives To examine whether regional biomedical
journals in Africa had policies on plagiarism and
procedures to detect it; and to measure the extent of
plagiarism in their original research articles and reviews.
Design Cross sectional survey.
Setting and participants We selected journals with
an editor-in-chief in Africa, a publisher based in a low
or middle income country and with author guidelines in
English, and systematically searched the African Journals
Online database. From each of the 100 journals identified,
we randomly selected five original research articles or
reviews published in 2016.
Outcomes For included journals, we examined the
presence of plagiarism policies and whether they referred
to text matching software. We submitted articles to
Turnitin and measured the extent of plagiarism (copying
of someone else’s work) or redundancy (copying of one’s
own work) against a set of criteria we had developed and
piloted.
Results Of the 100 journals, 26 had a policy on plagiarism
and 16 referred to text matching software. Of 495 articles,
313 (63%; 95% CI 58 to 68) had evidence of plagiarism:
17% (83) had at least four linked copied or more than
six individual copied sentences; 19% (96) had three to
six copied sentences; and the remainder had one or two
copied sentences. Plagiarism was more common in the
introduction and discussion, and uncommon in the results.
Conclusion Plagiarism is common in biomedical research
articles and reviews published in Africa. While wholesale
plagiarism was uncommon, moderate text plagiarism
was extensive. This could rapidly be eliminated if journal
editors implemented screening strategies, including text
matching software.
Description
CITATION: Rohwer, A., Wager, E., Young, T. & Garner, P. 2018. Plagiarism in research: a survey of African medical journals. BMJ Open 8(11):e024777, doi:10.1136/
bmjopen-2018-024777.
The original publication is available at https://bmjopen.bmj.com/
This research article is part of Anke Rohwers' PhD, see http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/103960
The original publication is available at https://bmjopen.bmj.com/
This research article is part of Anke Rohwers' PhD, see http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/103960
Keywords
Plagiarism, Plagiarism policy, Biomedical journals -- Africa, Article reviews, Turnitin
Citation
Rohwer, A., Wager, E., Young, T. & Garner, P. 2018. Plagiarism in research: a survey of African medical journals. BMJ Open 8(11):e024777, doi:10.1136/
bmjopen-2018-024777.