EDITORIAL

J Oral Maxillofac Surg

83:1-2, 2025

Trouble, Trouble, Citing Double

A thief is a thief, whether he steals a diamond or a preferable to 1 large paper that falls, like the proverbial
cucumber tree in the forest, without being heard.
—Old proverb. Unfortunately, there is a downside to partitioning
the research output of a single dataset. It puts the
Plagiarism had its 15 minutes of fame recently when
author at risk of accusations of ‘‘salami science’’ and
a major university president resigned amidst accusa-
CV-padding. Even more insidious is the danger of
tions of improper citations from her robust body of ac-
self-plagiarism. Chances are that the methods to test
ademic work spanning over 25 years. Plagiarism is a
the multiple hypotheses are substantively similar in
special case of theft whereby intellectual work,
terms of sampling and analysis. Repeating large sec-
whether ideas or how they are expressed, are appro-
tions from one paper to the next without attribu-
priated by an author without proper attribution.1
tion—even to oneself—is a serious breach that
Assessing submissions for their originality is one of
carries serious consequences.
the responsibilities of JOMS reviewers and editors in
Plagiarism can cross language barriers. We have a
addition to judging the quality and validity of methods
vast international author base and all authors—regard-
and deciding whether a manuscript moves the needle
less of language—are held to the same standard. We
in the collective knowledge of our specialty. Our pub-
have seen passages in one language appear as seem-
lisher, Elsevier, provides computerized tools for check- ingly verbatim repetitions from a paper in a different
ing each manuscript against the published scientific language. Even with different languages involved, it
universe. Upon submission, a paper is scored for dupli- is the idea and the expression of the idea that deter-
cation and authentication. There has never been a pa- mines whether it is plagiarism.
per with a score of 0%. Authors would probably be Books and journals are not the only origins of sour-
surprised to see how many extended phrases used in ces that require attribution. Anything taken from the
their papers match those in other articles. The average internet—even if it is in the public domain—must be
submitted manuscript scores about 20% overlap with attributed to its source. And because the internet is
previously published material. so dynamic, online source references must contain
Such is the nature of a small and narrow specialty. the date and time in which they were accessed. We
For example, related studies tend to result in similarly had a submission whose author believed that because
structured Materials and Methods sections. There are Wikipedia was open and free its material could be lifted
just so many ways to phrase a particular surgical verbatim to augment their discussion. Or perhaps they
approach, a long-winded chemical agent, or the cali- neglected to reference the source because they were
bration of a robotic arm. We have terse and similar embarrassed to admit that Wikipedia was superior to
ways of describing the retrospective extraction of their own ability to articulate the findings.
data from hospital records or the randomization of pa- Plagiarism does not only pertain to prose and writ-
tients into distinct groups for a prospective clinical ten material. Previously published photographs, ta-
trial. These types of overlaps are considered technical bles, and figures are often copyright protected and
boilerplate. Realistically, how many ways are there to cannot be used without permission and attribution.
say, ‘‘To address the research question, the investiga- More than once, we have caught authors flipping
tors designed and implemented a triple-blind, pla- high quality published images 180 and embedding
cebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial?’’ them in their own papers. It is a clever yet unaccept-
One common pitfall occurs when investigators take able workaround to mitigate the high cost of produc-
a large dataset and address several different, but ing print-quality clinical images.
related, hypotheses. In principle, these hypotheses Many academic institutions specify that using a sin-
are capable of being addressed in a single manuscript. gle paper for more than one class is an act of plagia-
Most readers, however, will not read a long paper in its rism. JOMS has a similar restriction in that an author
entirety, which means the authors would fail in their must attest that their submission is not currently being
mission to disseminate useful or actionable informa- considered by another journal; nor are they permitted
tion. Academic pressures being what they are, publish- to submit the paper elsewhere while under consider-
ing 3 short papers in rapid succession is often ation by JOMS.

1
2 EDITORIAL

Now that generative artificial intelligence (GAI) has In our world of oral and maxillofacial surgery, we are
entered the picture and confounded all the intellectual aware that much of the research we see results from
property attorneys, we have begun to develop new significant person-hours of student and resident labor.
standards and guidelines for assessing and managing Ultimately, all the authors are on the hook for the sum
plagiarism. Authors are now required to indicate total of the research output and any published manu-
how and where they have used GAI in producing their scripts. While the laws and guidelines protecting intel-
manuscripts. It is strictly forbidden to use GAI to pro- lectual property and ensuring academic propriety will
duce content for submission to JOMS. At this moment continue to evolve along with new generative technol-
in time, the output of GAI tools is derivative of pub- ogies, you can be sure that the consequences of
lished materials, and one does not know whether its misuse and misappropriation will remain severe. I
sources are accurate, timely, or properly attributed. recommend that you do not leave plagiarism checking
We must beware of the many shades of plagiarism. up to JOMS. Before you submit a manuscript, take a
Whether it results from ignorance, accident, omission, minute to authenticate your own work.
technological artifact, or intellectual misdeed, the
THOMAS B. DODSON, DMD, MPH
tolerance for this type of academic impropriety ap- EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
proaches zero at most institutions. It is one of the
few indiscretions that can result in the loss of a
tenured position. But is plagiarism truly a catchall? A
one-size-fits-all situation? References
John McWhorter recently opined that we need to
rethink plagiarism, suggesting that a simple ‘‘cut and 1. What Constitutes plagiarism? | Harvard Guide to Using Sources,
https://usingsources.fas.harvard.edu/what-constitutes-plagiarism-0.
paste’’ is not as egregious as taking someone else’s Accessed July 26, 2024
idea as your own.2 Indeed, in the case of that ill-fated 2. McWhorter J. We Need a New Word for ‘Plagiarism. New York,
university president, many of the authors from NY, New York Times, 2024, p 9
whom she allegedly borrowed material felt that her
use of their words and phrases had not crossed that Ó 2025 American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
higher threshold. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joms.2024.07.007