Plagiarism and other Types of Publication Misconduct: A case for teaching publication ethics in medical schools

The World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) in its publication, Ethics Policies for Medical Journals, defines plagiarism as “the use of others’ published and unpublished ideas or words (or other intellectual property) without attribution or permission, and presenting them as new and original rather than derived from an existing source. This applies whether the ideas or words are taken from abstracts, research grant applications, institutional review board applications, or unpublished or published manuscripts in any publication format (print or electronic)”1 The Office of Research Integrity (ORI) in the USA considers “plagiarism to include both the theft or misappropriation of intellectual property and the substantial unattributed textual copying of another’s work”