Sri Kantha Sachi
Center for Human Evolutionary Modeling Research, Kyoto University-Primate Research Institute, Inuyama City, Aichi 484-8506, Japan.
Croat Med J. 2003 Feb;44(1):20-3.
Plagiarism causes a serious concern in scientific literature. I distinguish two types of plagiarism. What is routinely highlighted and discussed is the reprehensible type of stealing another author's ideas and words. This type I categorize as "heterotrophic" plagiarism. A more prevalent and less-discussed type of plagiarism is the verbatim use of same sentences repetitively by authors in their publications. This I categorize as "autotrophic" plagiarism. Though harmless per se, autotrophic plagiarism is equally taxing on the readers. The occurrence of autotrophic plagiarism is mainly caused by the lack of proficiency in the current lingua franca of science, ie, English. The writings of 22 Nobel literature laureates who wrote in English, especially their travelogues, essays, and letters to the press can be used for benefit of improving one's own vocabulary and writing skills and style. I suggest the writings of three literati--Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell, and Ernest Hemingway--as palliatives for autotrophic plagiarism in scientific publishing.
剽窃在科学文献中引发了严重的关注。我区分了两种剽窃类型。通常被强调和讨论的是应受谴责的窃取另一位作者的观点和文字的类型。我将这种类型归类为“异养型”剽窃。一种更普遍且较少被讨论的剽窃类型是作者在其出版物中重复逐字使用相同的句子。我将此归类为“自养型”剽窃。尽管自养型剽窃本身无害,但对读者来说同样费力。自养型剽窃的出现主要是由于缺乏对当前科学通用语言即英语的熟练掌握。22位用英语写作的诺贝尔文学奖获得者的作品,尤其是他们的游记、散文以及给媒体的信件,可用于提高自身的词汇量以及写作技巧和风格。我建议三位文人——萧伯纳、伯特兰·罗素和欧内斯特·海明威——的作品作为科学出版中自养型剽窃的缓解方法。