Text-borrowing Practices in LIS Doctoral Theses of South Indian Universities: A Study
Authors
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UGC-Senior Research Fellow, Department of Studies in Library and Information Science, University of Mysore, Mysuru – 570006, Karnataka
Chikku Balachandran -
Professor, Department of Studies in Library and Information Science, University of Mysore, Mysuru – 570006, KarnatakaN. S. Harinarayana
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17821/srels/2023/v60i4/171089Keywords:
Ph.D. Theses, Plagiarism, Text Borrowing, Text SimilarityAbstract
This paper reports the findings of the study, which examined the text copying practices prevalent among the Ph.D. theses in Library and Information Science (LIS) submitted to South India’s universities. Ten theses available in the Shodhganga repository have been tested for text-borrowing practices. Turnitin, a plagiarism detection software, has been used to identify the text matches in theses, and the plagiarised portions are manually analyzed with original sources. The findings indicate that LIS doctoral theses borrow words up to 30% without proper citations. Copying text from other sources and presenting without appropriate citation modalities (Sham plagiarism) is found to be common among the South Indian Ph.D. theses. Direct plagiarism type is less compared to inappropriate paraphrasing.
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