Inadvertent Plagiarism Research Articles

Chatbots, Generative AI, and Scholarly Manuscripts: WAME Recommendations on Chatbots and Generative Artificial Intelligence in Relation to Scholarly Publications Revised May 31, 2023

Introduction
 This statement revises our earlier “WAME Recommendations on ChatGPT and Chatbots in Relation to Scholarly Publications” (January 20, 2023). The revision reflects the proliferation of chatbots and their expanding use in scholarly publishing over the last few months, as well as emerging concerns regarding lack of authenticity of content when using chatbots. These Recommendations are intended to inform editors and help them develop policies for the use of chatbots in papers published in their journals. They aim to help authors and reviewers understand how best to attribute the use of chatbots in their work, and to address the need for all journal editors to have access to manuscript screening tools. In this rapidly evolving field, we will continue to modify these recommendations as the software and its applications develop.
 A chatbot is a tool “[d]riven by [artificial intelligence], automated rules, natural-language processing (NLP), and machine learning (ML)…[to] process data to deliver responses to requests of all kinds.”1 Artificial intelligence (AI) is “the ability of a digital computer or computer-controlled robot to perform tasks commonly associated with intelligent beings.”2
 “Generative modeling is an artificial intelligence technique that generates synthetic artifacts by analyzing training examples; learning their patterns and distribution; and then creating realistic facsimiles. Generative AI (GAI) uses generative modeling and advances in deep learning (DL) to produce diverse content at scale by utilizing existing media such as text, graphics, audio, and video.”3, 4
 Chatbots are activated by a plain-language instruction, or “prompt,” provided by the user. They generate responses using statistical and probability-based language models.5 This output has some characteristic properties. It is usually linguistically accurate and fluent but, to date, it is often compromised in various ways. For example, chatbot output currently carries the risk of including biases, distortions, irrelevancies, misrepresentations, and plagiarism many of which are caused by the algorithms governing its generation and heavily dependent on the contents of the materials used in its training. Consequently, there are concerns about the effects of chatbots on knowledge creation and dissemination – including their potential to spread and amplify mis- and disinformation6 – and their broader impact on jobs and the economy, as well as the health of individuals and populations. New legal issues have also arisen in connection with chatbots and generative AI.7
 Chatbots retain the information supplied to them, including content and prompts, and may use this information in future responses. Therefore, scholarly content that is generated or edited using AI would be retained and as a result, could potentially appear in future responses, further increasing the risk of inadvertent plagiarism on the part of the user and any future users of the technology. Anyone who needs to maintain confidentiality of a document, including authors, editors, and reviewers, should be aware of this issue before considering using chatbots to edit or generate work.9
 Chatbots and their applications illustrate the powerful possibilities of generative AI, as well as the risks. These Recommendations seek to suggest a workable approach to valid concerns about the use of chatbots in scholarly publishing.

“I Thought My Idea to Use Your Idea Was a Great Idea”: Inadvertent Plagiarism in Marketing

Cryptomnesia (i.e., inadvertent plagiarism) occurs when an individual believes that an idea from an external source is their own unique creation, and this can negatively impact marketers involved with creative activities. While several factors can influence whether an individual attends to the source of an idea during encoding and memory retrieval, cryptomnesia has been surprisingly overlooked within an advertising context. The purpose of this research note is to introduce the concept of cryptomnesia to advertising, explore cultural distance as a previously untested antecedent, and examine the effect of cryptomnesia on consumer evaluations. We conduct three experiments that provide evidence for how greater cultural distance is associated with increased cryptomnesia in advertising—although being in a flow state can attenuate this effect—resulting in decreased consumer attitudes, cognitions, and behavioral intentions.

Stopping plagiarism through enculturation: A practice-based approach

For the past decade or more, instructors in all disciplines and at all levels of education have worried about increased student misconduct and plagiarism. The rise in plagiarism is due, partly, to an evolving ethos among communities of users and providers who share open source media and, partly, to misleading models, such as Internet sources that offer information without crediting authors ((Buchanan & McKay, 2018). There has also been a rise in inadvertent plagiarism as international students arrive at Western universities and face the challenges of developing skills in a new language and of learning how to reference source materials (Howard, 2005; Lei & Hu, 2015; Li & Casanave, 2012; Pecorari, 2003). This paper explores the efficacy of the Academic Literacies Training in English (ALTE) method which the authors designed to help students develop skills in quoting and citing sources while fostering enculturation, an anthropological term, meaning welcoming students to become members of the community and embrace academic values (Wang 2008, p. 751). The value the authors seek to promote is that of intellectual property. Familiarizing students with the academic conventions of quoting and citing sources is essential to make them cognizant of the ethical and logical reasons for crediting scholars for their work (Jamieson, 2008; Maddox, 2008). The ALTE method integrates referencing, vocabulary, and grammar into writing instruction, using low-stakes exercises and formal assignments that serve as learning tools (Gibbs, 2010). In this paper, we discuss how the ALTE method, a systematic, practice-based approach in writing and referencing instruction, is an effective means of minimizing inadvertent plagiarism among lower-level university students.

Plagiarism in nursing education: an integrative review.

To identify the prevalence and antecedents of plagiarism within nursing education and approaches to prevention and management. There has been growing media attention highlighting the prevalence of plagiarism in universities, including the academic integrity of undergraduate nursing students. A breach of academic integrity among nursing students also raises further concern with the potential transfer of this dishonest behaviour to the clinical setting. Integrative review. A systematic search of five electronic databases including CINAHL, MEDLINE, SCOPUS, ProQuest Nursing & Allied Health Source, and ERIC was undertaken. Only primary studies related to plagiarism and nursing students (undergraduate or postgraduate) studying at a tertiary education institution or nursing faculty were included. Both qualitative and quantitative study designs were included. Twenty studies were included in this review with six key themes identified: (1) prevalence; (2) knowledge, understanding and attitudes; (3) types of plagiarism; (4) antecedents to plagiarism; (5) interventions to reduce or prevent plagiarism; and (6) the relationship between academic honesty and professional integrity. Plagiarism is common among university nursing students, with a difference in perception of this behaviour between students and academics. The review also highlighted the importance of distinguishing between inadvertent and deliberate plagiarism, with differing strategies suggested to address this behaviour. Nevertheless, interventions to reduce plagiarism have not been shown to be effective. The current punitive approach to plagiarism within nursing faculties has not reduced its occurrence. There is a need to promote awareness, knowledge and provide students with the appropriate referencing skills, to reduce the significant amount of inadvertent plagiarism. The importance of promoting honesty and academic integrity in nursing education is highlighted. Cheating within the academic setting has been associated with dishonesty in the clinical setting, which highlights the importance of nurturing a culture of honesty and integrity at university.

Students� Problems in Writing Paraphrases in Research Paper Writing Class

Paraphrase is one of the techniques of incorporating sources in which every writer is allowed to borrow the authors ideas and restate them into their own words. Based on the previous study, it was found that English Language Education Study Program (ELESP) students, Sanata Dharma University, were unable to paraphrase properly since they tended to copy the authors words directly. If this problem was continuously ignored, it would be dangerous for the students because they could be charged with inadvertent plagiarism. This study was intended to investigate ELESP students problems in writing paraphrases and the reasons why they produce unacceptable paraphrases by conducting document analysis and interview in Research Paper Writing class. From the findings, it could be identified that the most frequent type of problem encountered by the students was word-for-word plagiarism.DOI: https://doi.org/10.24071/llt.2012.150101

Do Cheaters Never Prosper? The Impact of Examples, Expertise, and Cognitive Load on Cryptomnesia and Inadvertent Self-Plagiarism of Creative Tasks

Previous work has shown that the presence of examples may lead to cryptomnesia, or inadvertent plagiarism, on creative tasks. Various experiential and environmental attributes may magnify this finding. For instance, novices, with limited knowledge, may be more prone to inadvertently plagiarize examples, and increases in cognitive load may result in an inability to recall the source of an idea. The purpose of my research was to determine if providing examples leads to cryptomnesia on linguistic and visual creative tasks and to further examine whether expertise level and cognitive load magnifies this relationship. In study 1, participants were given plain instructions or instructions with either an auditory or print example before completing linguistic and visual divergent thinking (DT) tasks. Examples increased the likelihood of cryptomnesia for both tasks, especially with congruent modalities (print example and visual task). In study 2, participants were classified as novices or experts in engineering and completed two designs tasks, one with an example accompanying the instructions. The presence of an example fostered cryptomnesia and this effect was stronger for novices. Novices were also more likely to inadvertently self-plagiarize. In study 3, participants were exposed to examples under both cognitive taxation and no taxation conditions prior to completing linguistic and visual DT tasks. After controlling for error rate on taxation task, cognitive taxation resulted in a greater likelihood of cryptomnesia. Based on principles of schema theory and cognitive load, in order to reduce cryptomnesia it is recommended to avoid providing examples for higher level learning objectives and avoid simultaneous presentation of congruent task modalities.

Skills training to avoid inadvertent plagiarism: results from a randomised control study

Plagiarism continues to be a concern within academic institutions. The current study utilised a randomised control trial of 137 new entry tertiary students to assess the efficacy of a scalable short training session on paraphrasing, patch writing and plagiarism. The results indicate that the training significantly enhanced students' overall knowledge about in-text referencing protocols. Importantly, this knowledge was found to translate into applied skills, with the intervention group performing significantly better in a practical skills application task. Moreover, the findings suggest that it is confidence in writing in English, not language background per se, which plays a significant role in students' practical skills in referencing and their confidence in performing assignment preparation tasks that can help them avoid claims of inadvertent plagiarism.

The Rising Rate of Plagiarism, Careless Citation Practice, Bad Grammar, and Failure to Read (and I’m Not Talking About the Students)

The Rising Rate of Plagiarism, Careless Citation Practice, Bad Grammar, and Failure to Read (and I’m Not Talking About the Students) Sarah M. Pritchard In many editorials, we try to highlight cutting-edge issues in higher education or information services, or we try to suggest areas for solid new research or innovative analysis. This month’s statement, however, may be viewed by some readers as just a rant, or as fussing over something old and tired. It is both. It is an exhortation to our colleagues to adhere to traditional measures of integrity, and to seek a higher level of excellence, ethics, and precision. Our inbox yields an increasing number of manuscripts that suffer from more than just casual typographical errors; they reveal an indifference toward, or ignorance of, standard scholarly practices. This risks discrediting the authors, the journal, the publisher, and the profession. We are seeing an increasing number of writings that reveal overt plagiarism, inadvertent plagiarism, self-plagiarism, inadequate or uncited paraphrasing, or a lack of knowledge of how to summarize an idea in one’s own words; concepts we thought were supposed to be learned at a far earlier stage in one’s education. We recently had to send back a manuscript with explicit instructions to the author to differentiate their sources more clearly, to paraphrase, and to reduce the excessive use of lengthy quotations, which seemed to reveal an absence of new original thought and was verging on plagiarism. The author seemed genuinely puzzled as to how to do this. We had to decline an article for having already been published, because the lion’s share of it was identical to a working paper by the author, publicly disseminated through a research web site. Again, the author seemed to think there was nothing wrong with such dual publication despite our formal guidelines to the contrary. With an author who cites his or her own prior work, we have had to craft arbitrary rules of thumb for identifying the percentage [End Page 339] of new work in order to discourage an approach that can at best be termed minor and insubstantial incrementalism. What proportion of an article must be new - and how new is new - before we as editors feel that it has not already been published? If an author reads a paper at a conference and the conference proceedings are officially online, we consider that prior publication. If the conference only publishes the abstracts, or if the author has significantly extended the scope of the research or the depth of analysis, then the paper submitted may be not at all what has already been published. Another trend is that authors utilize sloppy and inconsistent citation practices, turning in manuscripts with badly formatted footnotes, missing or inaccurate author names, partial pagination, or citations to informal or electronic resources without reference to an accessible verifiable version. More and more, authors seem to expect that editors will magically reformat and repopulate all of their citations using swift and accurate publishing software. Even if the existing software were powerful enough to do that reliably, which it is not, it is still the author’s responsibility to undertake the careful preparation of footnotes, ensuring accuracy and using the official style required by a given journal. It is widely decried in the public media that there is a decline in competency in grammar, syntax, sentence construction, and, sad to say, formulation of sequential thought. Listen to any scripted television show or read a major newspaper to verify the truth of this assertion. Smugly, naively, we think that in a profession as learned as ours, surely that is not the case. But we see startling lapses in grammar, and these are not limited to papers written by authors for whom English is not a native language. If it were simply a misplaced “however,” that’s the kind of fix that can be done in routine copy-editing. We see egregious and numerous instances of misplaced modifiers, improper noun-verb agreement, incorrect pronoun case, faulty parallel construction, and sentences where the thoughts do not follow logically from the first clause to the second. Perhaps authors assume that a quick once-over with the...

Sad mood reduces inadvertent plagiarism: Effects of affective state on source monitoring in cryptomnesia

In two experiments, we explored the influence of affective state, or mood, on inadvertent plagiarism, a memory failure in which individuals either misattribute the source of an idea to themselves rather than to the true originator or simply do not recall having encountered the idea before and claim it as novel. Using a paradigm in which participants generate word puzzle solutions and later recall these solutions, we created an opportunity for participants to mistakenly claim ownership of items that were, in fact, initially generated by their computer ‘partner.’ Results of both experiments suggest that participants induced into a sad mood before solving the word puzzles made fewer source memory errors than did those induced into a happy mood. Results of Experiment 2 also imply that sad mood reduces some item memory errors. Implications for appraisal theories, such as the affect-as-information hypothesis, are discussed.

Students’ Problems in Writing Paraphrases in Research Paper Writing Class

Paraphrase is one of the techniques of incorporating sources in which every writer is allowed to borrow the author’s ideas and restate them into their own words. Based on the previous study, it was found that English Language Education Study Program (ELESP) students, Sanata Dharma University, were unable to paraphrase properly since they tended to copy the author’s words directly. If this problem was continuously ignored, it would be dangerous for the students because they could be charged with inadvertent plagiarism. This study was intended to investigate ELESP students’ problems in writing paraphrases and the reasons why they produce unacceptable paraphrases by conducting document analysis and interview in Research Paper Writing class. From the findings, it could be identified that the most frequent type of problem encountered by the students was word-for-word plagiarism. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24071/llt.2012.150101

Get the cite right: Design and evaluation of a high-quality online citation tutorial

As part of a library initiative to foster information literacy, promote academic integrity, and prevent inadvertent plagiarism, a high-quality online tutorial was designed to teach students to cite sources properly. The development of this tutorial, APA Exposed: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About APA Format but Were Afraid to Ask, was a collaborative endeavor among research and instruction librarians, learning technology specialists, and an instructor. This study employs a mixed-methods research approach that combines the use of multiple data sources – an online survey, website visitor-tracking software, e-mail correspondence, and a Google search – to evaluate the quality and efficacy of the tutorial. Analyses of online survey data indicate 98% of survey respondents found the tutorial useful or very useful. All of the respondents reported the tutorial improved their understanding of APA style. In addition, 93% of respondents said they planned to use this tutorial as a reference resource in the future and 99% said they would recommend the tutorial to others. The online tutorial received an average of 1055 visits per month. The findings of this study indicate that there is a need for high-quality online citation instruction and that the tutorial meets this need. Providing effective citation instruction online not only benefits tutorial participants but also research and instruction librarians as they can now allocate limited library resources to areas of instruction other then proper citation techniques.

Editorial, Volume 5(2)

Editorial, Volume 5(2)

Inadvertent plagiarism in young and older adults: The role of working memory capacity in reducing memory errors

Two experiments examined inadvertent plagiarism in young and older adults. Young and older adults took turns generating category exemplars in small groups, and after a short retention interval recall was tested and subjects were asked to generate new exemplars (i.e., exemplars not initially generated). When asked to generate new exemplars, older adults were more likely to repeat exemplars that had been generated earlier by others (i.e., generate-new plagiarism). When asked to recall the exemplars they had generated earlier, older adults were more likely to claim that they had generated exemplars that had been generated by others (i.e., recall-own plagiarism), and were also more likely to falsely recall exemplars that had not been generated at all. There were no age differences in confidence for items that were plagiarized on the generate-new task. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that age differences in generate-new plagiarism and false recall were entirely mediated by measures of episodic recall and working memory capacity. We conclude that inadvertent plagiarism errors result from the failure of systematic decision processes, and that controlled attention is important for avoiding memory errors.

The eureka error: Inadvertent plagiarism by misattributions of effort.

The authors found that the feeling of authorship for mental actions such as solving problems is enhanced by effort cues experienced during mental activity; misattribution of effort cues resulted in inadvertent plagiarism. Pairs of participants took turns solving anagrams as they exerted effort on an unrelated task. People inadvertently plagiarized their partners' answers more often when they experienced high incidental effort while working on the problem and reduced effort as the solution appeared. This result was found for efforts produced when participants squeezed a handgrip during the task (Experiment 1) or when the anagram was displayed in a font that was difficult to read (Experiments 2, 3a, and 3b). Plagiarism declined, however, when participants attended to the source of the effort cues (Experiments 3a and 3b). These results suggest that effort misattribution can influence authorship processing for mental activities.

Academic Integrity: An Awareness and Development Issue for Students and Staff

University plagiarism policies aimed at assuring academic integrity provide for increased vigilance and disciplinary procedures to deal with transgressions. Many policies also include guidelines to teaching staff to ensure that students are adequately informed about the meaning of plagiarism and its consequences, and about methods of citing within the particular referencing system in use. However, the experience of academic advising has indicated that receiving such information is insufficient for students who, for a variety of reasons, inadvertently lapse into plagiarism. This is particularly the case for international students for whom English is a second or additional language. A simple and not excessively timeconsuming strategy is proposed for academics to ensure that students have the opportunity to learn not only the mechanics of what they are required to do, but also the reasons for the requirements and assistance in learning the language for fulfilling these requirements. The strategy involves, firstly, the induction of students into the concept of evidence-based learning as the essential characteristic of university learning, teaching and research, and secondly, the application of a tool such as genre analysis for mastering the language of their discipline. This is an awareness and development issue that is particularly important for international students whose time within the English-speaking Australian university environment may be limited to three or four years. The proposed strategy has the potential of becoming a powerful mechanism for reducing the incidence of inadvertent plagiarism, as well as raising the overall standard of written work for an increasing range of students.

Academic Integrity: An Awareness and Development Issue for Students and Staff.

University plagiarism policies aimed at assuring academic integrity provide for increased vigilance and disciplinary procedures to deal with transgressions. Many policies also include guidelines to teaching staff to ensure that students are adequately informed about the meaning of plagiarism and its consequences, and about methods of citing within the particular referencing system in use. However, the experience of academic advising has indicated that receiving such information is insufficient for students who, for a variety of reasons, inadvertently lapse into plagiarism. This is particularly the case for international students for whom English is a second or additional language. A simple and not excessively timeconsuming strategy is proposed for academics to ensure that students have the opportunity to learn not only the mechanics of what they are required to do, but also the reasons for the requirements and assistance in learning the language for fulfilling these requirements. The strategy involves, firstly, the induction of students into the concept of evidence-based learning as the essential characteristic of university learning, teaching and research, and secondly, the application of a tool such as genre analysis for mastering the language of their discipline. This is an awareness and development issue that is particularly important for international students whose time within the Englishspeaking Australian university environment may be limited to three or four years. The proposed strategy has the potential of becoming a powerful mechanism for reducing the incidence of inadvertent plagiarism, as well as raising the overall standard of written work for an increasing range of students. This journal article is available in Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice: http://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol2/iss3/6 Jour na l o f Un ive rs i t y Teach ing and Lear n ing Pr ac t i ce Academic Integrity: An Awareness and Development Issue for Students and Staff

Inadvertent plagiarism in everyday life

Inadvertent plagiarism is a source monitoring error described in laboratory studies. In the present study, the existence of this phenomenon in everyday life and the impact of a variable considered in laboratory (i.e. source similarity) were investigated. Two hundred and two participants were asked to remember an episode involving inadvertent plagiarism in the past, and to describe it. Results showed that inadvertent plagiarism occurs in real life conditions with respect to various types of activities. Moreover, source similarity had an impact on inadvertent plagiarism. In particular, same-sex plagiarism occurred more often than opposite-sex plagiarism. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Contexts of Cryptomnesia: May the Source Be with You

Cryptomnesia represents an intriguing type of mental illusion in which people mistakenly believe that they have produced a new idea when in fact they have simply unwittingly retrieved an old, previously encountered idea from memory. Drawing on recent research on this form of inadvertent plagiarism, we hypothesized that perceivers' susceptibility to the illusion that other people's responses were actually self-generated would be influenced by contextual variables that impact upon the efficiency of source monitoring. The results of three studies, examining different contextual factors (i.e., Experiment 1, perceptual similarity; Experiment 2, cognitive distraction; Experiment 3, retrieval context), confirmed this prediction. We consider how difficulties in source monitoring may inform our understanding of the process and consequences of cryptomnesia in everyday life.

In Search of Inadvertent Plagiarism

In Search of Inadvertent Plagiarism

How examples may (and may not) constrain creativity.

Three experiments were performed to test Smith, Ward, and Schumacher's (1993) conformity hypothesis-that people's ideas will conform to examples they are shown in a creative generation task. Conformity was observed in all three experiments; participants tended to incorporate critical features of experimenter-provided examples. However, examination of total output, elaborateness of design, and the noncritical features did not confirm that the conformity effect constrained creative output in any of the three experiments. Increasing the number of examples increased the conformity effect (Experiment 1). Examples that covaried features that are naturally uncorrelated in the real world led to a greater subjective rating of creativity (Experiment 2). A delay between presentation and test increased conformity (Experiment 3), just as models of inadvertent plagiarism would predict. The explanatory power of theoretical accounts such as activation, retrieval blocking, structured imagination, and category abstraction are evaluated.