Plagiarism in dentistry - a systematic review

TY - JOUR

T1 - Plagiarism in dentistry - a systematic review

AU - Farook, Taseef Hasan

AU - Radford, John

AU - Alam, Mohammad Khursheed

AU - Jamayet, Nafij Bin

PY - 2020/10/23

Y1 - 2020/10/23

N2 - Objective: Following a survey of the literature, a systematic review was carried out with the aim of answering the following questions: 1) What is 'acceptable plagiarism'?; 2) Who carries out plagiarism?; 3) What factors could encourage plagiarism?; 4) How can plagiarism be managed?Data source and selection: Following PRISMA guidelines, data were gathered by searching Scopus, PubMed and Web of Science. After removal of duplicates, 345 titles were identified. Then, having satisfied a priori eligibility criteria, 29 papers were interrogated. The quality of relevant papers (n = 23) was assessed using the Joanna Briggs Critical Appraisal Tool.Data extraction: There was no clear threshold as to what is 'acceptable plagiarism'. Despite this lack of clarity, it is argued consistently that males, and those who wrote in a language that is not their mother tongue, were more likely to plagiarise.Conclusion: Plagiarism is all but inescapable due to various reasons: 1) there is no agreed threshold as to what is 'acceptable plagiarism'; 2) the internet; 3) institutional; and 4) societal expectations. Plagiarism could be mitigated in the student domain by grammar support and, for example, non-written submissions such as presenting work by video. Academic fraud is fundamentally undermined by valuing original and creative scholarship and sound ethical principles.

AB - Objective: Following a survey of the literature, a systematic review was carried out with the aim of answering the following questions: 1) What is 'acceptable plagiarism'?; 2) Who carries out plagiarism?; 3) What factors could encourage plagiarism?; 4) How can plagiarism be managed?Data source and selection: Following PRISMA guidelines, data were gathered by searching Scopus, PubMed and Web of Science. After removal of duplicates, 345 titles were identified. Then, having satisfied a priori eligibility criteria, 29 papers were interrogated. The quality of relevant papers (n = 23) was assessed using the Joanna Briggs Critical Appraisal Tool.Data extraction: There was no clear threshold as to what is 'acceptable plagiarism'. Despite this lack of clarity, it is argued consistently that males, and those who wrote in a language that is not their mother tongue, were more likely to plagiarise.Conclusion: Plagiarism is all but inescapable due to various reasons: 1) there is no agreed threshold as to what is 'acceptable plagiarism'; 2) the internet; 3) institutional; and 4) societal expectations. Plagiarism could be mitigated in the student domain by grammar support and, for example, non-written submissions such as presenting work by video. Academic fraud is fundamentally undermined by valuing original and creative scholarship and sound ethical principles.

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85092926549

U2 - 10.1038/s41415-020-2026-4

DO - 10.1038/s41415-020-2026-4

M3 - Article

C2 - 33082524

AN - SCOPUS:85092926549

SN - 0007-0610

VL - 229

JO - British Dental Journal

JF - British Dental Journal

IS - 8

ER -