Text-borrowing Practices in LIS Doctoral Theses of South Indian Universities: A Study

Chikku Balachandran; N. S. Harinarayana

doi:10.17821/srels/2023/v60i4/171089

Authors

Chikku Balachandran
UGC-Senior Research Fellow, Department of Studies in Library and Information Science, University of Mysore, Mysuru – 570006, Karnataka
N. S. Harinarayana
Professor, Department of Studies in Library and Information Science, University of Mysore, Mysuru – 570006, Karnataka

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17821/srels/2023/v60i4/171089

Keywords:

Ph.D. Theses, Plagiarism, Text Borrowing, Text Similarity

Abstract

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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