Research Article: “‘Text Overlap’ Clutters Scientific Papers, Arxiv Analysis Finds” | LJ INFOdocket

"Computer text analysis of a huge database of scientific papers shows a large amount of 'text overlap,' where authors use text from previous papers of their own and others, not always with attribution. This is not necessarily good or bad, Cornell researchers say. 'Our first goal was to characterize the accepted practice, not to be judgmental,' said Paul Ginsparg, professor of physics and information science and founder of the online arXiv collection of scientific papers, now maintained by Cornell University Library. The analysis was conducted on thousands of papers in the arXiv. Ginsparg and Cornell graduate student Daniel Citron reported their study in the Dec. 8 online edition of the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences. (abstract only, full text preprint linked below) ..."