Text recycling in health sciences research literature: a rhetorical perspective.
Abstract
The past few years have seen a steady rise in the number of health science journals
using plagiarism detection software to screen submitted manuscripts. While there is
widespread agreement about the need to guard against plagiarism and duplicate publication,
the use of such tools has sparked debate about text recycling-the reuse of material
from one's prior publications in a new manuscript. Many who have published on the
topic consider all uses of text recycling anathema. Others argue that some uses of
recycling are unavoidable and sometimes even beneficial for readers. Unfortunately,
much of this discourse now merely repeats dogmatic assertions. I argue that progress
can be made by acknowledging three points: First, citation standards for research
writing in the health sciences will not mirror those of the humanities. Second, while
it is impossible to draw a definitive line between appropriate and inappropriate uses
of text recycling, some uses of the practice lie clearly on the legitimate side. Third,
the needs of editors for information regarding recycled text are different from those
of readers. Ultimately, calls for rewording and citation as alternatives or fixes
for text recycling are unlikely to prove satisfactory to either readers or editors.
A response to this article can be found using the following link: http://researchintegrityjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s41073-017-0026-y.
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https://hdl.handle.net/10161/19342Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1186/s41073-017-0025-zPublication Info
Moskovitz, C (2017). Text recycling in health sciences research literature: a rhetorical perspective. Research Integrity and Peer Review, 2(1). pp. 1. 10.1186/s41073-017-0025-z. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/19342.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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Show full item recordScholars@Duke
Cary Moskovitz
Professor of the Practice in the Thompson Writing Program
Cary Moskovitz is Director of Writing in the Disciplines in the Thompson Writing Program.
He also directs the Duke Reader Project and the Text Recycling Research Project.

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