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Text recycling in STEM: A text-analytic study of recently published research articles
1Department of Political Science, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Accountability in Research
|November 12, 2020
Summary
Researchers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) frequently reuse sentences from their prior publications. This practice, known as text recycling, is common, with most papers containing a few recycled sentences.
Area of Science:
- Scientific publishing
- Research ethics
Background:
- Text recycling, or self-plagiarism, is the reuse of one's own previously published material.
- This practice is increasingly debated in research ethics, particularly within STEM fields.
- Limited data exists on the actual prevalence of text recycling among researchers.
Purpose of the Study:
- To computationally analyze the extent of text recycling in published STEM research articles.
- To understand the common practices and variations in text recycling across different STEM disciplines.
Main Methods:
- A computational analysis was performed on a corpus of 400 published articles.
- The articles originated from 80 federally funded research projects spanning eight STEM disciplinary clusters.
- A custom tool developed in R was utilized for the analysis.
Main Results:
- STEM research groups commonly recycle material from their previous publications.
- On average, articles contained approximately three recycled sentences.
- A small percentage of research teams (around 15%) exhibited substantial text recycling.
- Recycled text was often superficially altered rather than being verbatim.
Conclusions:
- Text recycling appears to be a normative practice in STEM research writing.
- There is a need for clearer guidelines for researchers and editors regarding legitimate text recycling.
- Authors require better guidance on how to report the use of recycled material.
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