Compression Plagiarism

Abstract

Despite an increasedPlagiarismcompression recognition that plagiarism in published research can take many forms, current typologies of plagiarism are far from complete. One under-recognized variety of plagiarism—designated here as compression plagiarismPlagiarismcompression—consists of the distillation of a lengthy scholarly text into a short one, followed by the publication of the short one under a new name with inadequate credit to the original author. In typical cases, compression plagiarismPlagiarismcompression is invisible to unsuspecting readers and immune to text-matching softwareText-matching software. The persistence of uncorrected instances of plagiarism in all its forms—including compression plagiarismPlagiarismcompression—in the body of published research literature has deleterious consequences for the reliability of scholarly communication. Not the least of these problems is that original authors are denied credit for their discoveries. When unsuspecting researchers read articles that are the products of plagiarism, they unwittingly engage the argumentsArgument of hidden original authors through the proxy of plagiaristsPlagiarists. Furthermore, when these researchers later publish responses to the plagiarizing articles, not knowing they are engaging products of plagiarism, they create additional inefficiencies and redundancies in the body of published research. This chapter considers the particular ways in which compression plagiarismPlagiarismcompression weakens the quality of scholarly argumentation, with special attention paid to the field of philosophy.