What are the different types of plagiarism that exist in scientific publishing, and how do I ensure that my manuscript does not have any plagiarized content?

The different types of plagiarism include:

• Direct plagiarism, which involves direct use of text from another source without paraphrasing or mentioning it as a quotation.
• Complete plagiarism, which includes using another persons entire work, not only parts of it under your own name.
• Paraphrasing, which is the use of others work with just a few minor changes to make it appear different.
• Self-plagiarism, a form of plagiarism which involves using your own work twice and portraying them as two different pieces of work.
• Mosaic plagiarism, this involves strategically placing another person’s work between your own work. This form of plagiarism is also known as patchwork plagiarism.
• Accidental or unintentional plagiarism, this essentially means that the plagiarism that occurred in a manuscript was not intentionally carried out by the author and that the author may have overlooked certain things without the intention of actually indulging in plagiarism.

However, irrespective of the type, any form of plagiarism is a serious ethical misconduct and can have serious consequences such as rejection of the submitted manuscript by the journal, retraction of a published manuscript if plagiarism is detected after publication, damage to the reputation of the authors involved in the publication.

The golden rule to avoiding plagiarism is that do not try to pass off anything that is not your own as your own. And in cases where the content is your own, use it only the first time without attribution, any other use of this material requires the original piece of work to be duly attributed. You can use the various tools available online to check if there is any accidental instance of plagiarism. You could also use Enago’s Plagiarism Check software if you need professional help with submitting a plagiarism free manuscript for your next publication.