Plagiarism

Introduction

TipDefinition

Plagiarism is the act of copying someone else’s work, possibly with minor alterations, and passing it off as one’s own work (Ozturk et al. 2026, “Plagiarism of text”).

SimTexter output of comparison between similar articles (Elisabeth M Bik, March 2024, https://pubpeer.com/publications/E973017214FF8A834124D94533460A#6).

Key resources

NoteFalse Feathers

Book on plagiarism by Weber-Wulff (2014).

Note“Patchwriting, plagiarism, pedagogy”

Section of reference work Second Handbook of Academic Integrity (Jamieson 2024).

NoteText comparison software

• SimTexter: https://people.f4.htw-berlin.de/~weberwu/simtexter/app.html
• Text Compare: https://app.copyleaks.com/text-compare

NoteCOSIG

• Plagiarism of text: https://osf.io/2kdez/files/ntcb4

More information on COSIG: Ozturk et al. (2026).

Bibliography

Jamieson, Sandra. 2024. “Patchwriting, Plagiarism, Pedagogy: Definitions and Implications.” In Second Handbook of Academic Integrity. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-54144-5_68.

Ozturk, Yagmur, Solal Pirelli, and Reese A. K. Richardson. 2026. “Introducing COSIG: The Collection of Open Science Integrity Guides.” PLOS Biology 24 (6): e3003817. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003817.

Weber-Wulff, Debora. 2014. False Feathers: A Perspective on Academic Plagiarism. Springer Berlin Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39961-9.