Editorial/ Plagiarism, Copyright Violation, and Dual Publication: Are you guilty? by Mary P. Anderson, editor-in-chief Let us imagine you are writing @ paper for submis sion to @ journal. You need some introductory material including site description, explanation of methods ... that sort of thing. Hey, you just published a paper in another journal that has exactly what you need. Why not just lift the text verbatim (or maybe change a few words here and there) and also a few of the figures and insert it all into the new paper? After all, the words and figures are yours. and you have a right to use them, Or do you? You likely signed an agreement when the first paper ‘was published that transferred copyright to the publisher. You cannot publish the material again unless you obtain, permission from the original publisher and cite the first paper as the source of both text and figures. Failure to do so constitutes a violation of copyright and self-plagiarism. Plagiarism occurs when one appropriates as one’s own the writings and/or ideas of another. Iis still plagia- rism if you adapt someone else’s ideas to a new problem, without citing your source (eg., Notice of Plagiarism, 2004, Ground Water 42. no. 1: 2). In bis classic paper, CV. Theis (1935, Transactions of the American Geo- physical Union 16: 519-524) adapted a solution from the heat flow literature (o solve a problem in well hydraulics. He was carefull to cite his source. Theis’ paper revolu- tionized the field of ground water hydrology. Citing your source does not diminish the significance of your work. Self;plagiarism occurs when you reproduce portions of your work without citing the original work. What should you do when vital background information needs to be conveyed by way of introduction in one or more re- lated papers? Strictly speaking such repetition should be avoided, but duplication of a site map or site description in multiple publications is at least understandable. Never theless, the source of the map and description must be cited. Journals will generally allow reproduction of limited amounts of material without obtaining special permis- sion. For example, the American Geophysical Union allows individuals “to use figures, tables, and short {quotes from the journal for republication in scientific Copyright © 2006 The Author(s) Journal compilation © 2006 National Ground Water Assocation. Goi: 1.1111f.1745-6584:2006.00246x ooks and journals.” The Geological Society of America allows reproduction of "a single figure, a brief para ‘graph, or a single table” as fair usage. The National Ground Water Association also grants requests to re- produce material free of charge but requires that you con- tact the Director of Publications, Mr. Thad Plumley (iplumley @ngwa.org), with your specific need. Permis- sion is always granted when citing your own work Related issues are dual submission and dual publica- tion (Voss 2005, Hydrogeology Journal 13, no. 4: 545— 348). Dual submission occurs when an author submits the same, or essentially the same, paper to two (or more) Journals. Dual submission may seem like a good ideas, you tell yourself that you double your chances of getting the paper accepted, save some time if one joumal rejects the paper, and you can always withdraw the paper from one of the journals if it is accepted by both. This prac- tice, however, is strictly prohibited by journal policy. Upon submitting a paper to a journal, authors are asked to confirm that the work has not been previously pub- lished and is not under consideration by another journal. It is a waste of reviewers’ and editor's time to process a paper that will be withdrawn if accepted by another jour- nal. There is a good possibility that both journals will send the paper to at least one of the same reviewers. The reviewer will likely alert the editors to the occurrence of dual submission, leading to an embarrassing situation for the author. What about dual publication? When is there enough new material in a paper to justify another journal article? Sometimes, the title, abstract, and conclusions sections clearly indicate the material in the two papers is basically the same, But if there is doubt about the degree of over- lap, my philosophy is to focus on the figures and tables. AS long as most of the figures and tables are different, the accompanying text also must be different. Suspicion about overlap grows if two or more figuresftables are the ssame in both papers. ‘The next time you need to use previously published material, please remember to cite your sources and there- bby avoid the stigma of plagiarism. Also, be aware that dual submission violates journal policy. Finally, authors and reviewers alike should be vigilant to prevent dual publication. Vol. 44, No. 5~GROUND WATER—September-Octaber 2006 (oage 623) 623,ground, Water Readers’ Forum/ eee See eee Option for Posting Supplementary Material Now Avzilable We are pleased to announce that Ground Water is now able to host supplementary material on the journal's Web site at Blackwell Synergy (htips/www.biackwell~ synergy.com/loi/wat). With this option, information that is not essential to the paper but of interest to readers who wish (0 delve further into the ideas presented is included ‘with the online version of the paper published at Black- well Synergy. The supplementary material is referenced bat not included in the print version of the paper. Supple- mentary material may include large data tables, addi- tional figures, and text. The paper by Panno et al. in this issue includes supplementary material online. ‘Members of NGWA can access Blackwell Synergy by going to the NGWA home page (www.ngwaorg) and clicking on Service Center in the upper left hand coer of the page. After logging in using your member ID number and password, click on the link to “Synergy-Ground Copyright © 2006 The Authors) Journal compilation © 2006 National Ground Water Association. do: 10.1111.1745-584,2006.00287. Water” At the Synergy site, you will find all papers pub- lished from 1963 to present, which you may download as high-quality pdf files as a benefit of your NGWA mem- bership. A search engine is also available on the Web site On Synergy, you will also find a section called “Online carly" where accepted papers are published online after they are copy edited and proofed. Online early articles are fully peer reviewed and edited and are considered published from the date they first appear online. This date and the article’s digital object identifier number are shown with the article in the online table of contents. On print publication, the article is moved from the online early section to the relevant online issue, where page numbers and yolumelissue details are shown. If you are not curtently a member of NGWA, you may view the table of contents and abstracis by going directly to hup:/Avwu:blackwell-synergy.convioi/gwat. You ‘may also search for anicles using NGWA's Ground Water On-Line® (hrip:/Avww.ngwa.org/ewontine/swol.cfmn) where you may view abstracts free of charge. NGWA, members ‘may download full articles here as a benefit of membership. 624 Vol. 44, No, S~GROUND WATER—September-Octaber 2006 (oage 624) SN PPS FPS NPE SSS NPE