Why Plagiarism Detection Is Important

I've been asked more than once why I include plagiarism detection in my editorial service offering. 

It's not because I think scientific authors default to misconduct, rather, I want to protect busy and well-meaning authors from inadvertent scientific misconduct.

When I was Editor in Chief at American Pharmaceutical Review and Pharmaceutical Outsourcing, I instituted the use of plagiarism detection software tools and surprised the staff when we found 2 instances of plagiarism in as many months. The rate at which we found unattributed content was surprisingly higher than expected. The authors were all well-meaning (with a rare exception), and the cases where a source wasn't cited were mostly inadvertent instances.

There are many details to keep track of when drafting a manuscript, and it has happened more than once that an author has meant to attribute an external source in the manuscript but inadvertently left the citation out for one reason or another.

Peak Medical Editing can catch these inadvertent mistakes before you submit your manuscript to journal editors and prevent any potentially embarrassing or damaging notions of misconduct on your behalf.

An editing service that includes plagiarism detection is a valuable find indeed.