Plagiarism and predatory journals: A threat to scientific integrity

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of the concept of plagiarism in order to show the wide spectrum of manifestations that can be considered as such when committing a transgression of intellectual property, carried out with the intention of deceiving the authors’ true contribution and the originality and novelty of the information. It describes the different circumstances in which intentional plagiarism has occurred, and the damage that this misconduct causes in the credibility of the scientific system, in which authorship credit is the foundation of the academic career, of the prestige of the author in the scientific community, and the basis for financing research. Some circumstances are favouring this fraud: the pressure exerted on researchers by the criteria used for promotion and reward that prioritise the quantity of works on their quality, the existence of a market for the purchase and sale of scientific articles, and the proliferation of predatory journals that operate with no or minimal ethical standards. Finally, the paper highlights the convenience of the adoption of criteria that prioritise the intrinsic quality of the work versus its quantity, including the active involvement of the institutions in the development of active policies for the prevention, detection, and punishment of the cases of potential fraud, and to emphasise that, in the end, the prevention of fraud relies on the individual adoption of ethical and responsible behaviour.