Recycling Texts or Stealing Time?: Plagiarism, Authorship, and Credit in Science

Scientific plagiarism is as sui generis as the author function in science. A study of the specificity of scientific plagiarism and the ways in which it diverges from appropriation in other disciplines allows us to question traditional definitions that focus on the copying of published copyrighted materials. The form of plagiarism that is most damaging to scientists does not involve publications, is largely outside the scope of copyright law, and is unlikely to be detected by textual-similarity algorithms. The same features that make this kind of plagiarism difficult to identify and control also provide a powerful window on the unique construction of authorial credit in science, the problems of peer review, and the limitations of plagiarism surveillance technologies.