Draft version 1.7 beta — Revised October 26, 2026
← Return to the table in Chapter 4, § 5
Plagiarism
A topic page linked from Chapter 4, § 5, Examples of Reported Violations of Enforceable Ethics Codes.
Definition
The material on this page was also covered briefly in Chapter 3, section 4 of this Primer. According to the US Federal Policy on Research Misconduct,1,2 "plagiarism is the appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit." This definition is interpreted by GSA broadly in its Code of Ethics & Professional Conduct3 to forbid plagiarism in verbal or written communications.
Black's Law Dictionary 4 defines plagiarism as follows:
plagiarism. (17c) 1. The deliberate and knowing presentation of another person's original ideas or creative expressions as one's own: the wrongful appropriation of another's expression of ideas, or of the ideas themselves, by slight variation of expression; specifically, the act of stealing passages from someone else's compositions, either verbatim or in substance; literary theft.
Plagiarism is explicitly considered in the ethics codes or guidelines of all eight of the reference groups I chose to represent the geosciences community, listed below. Only "Conflict of interest" was included in as many published ethics documents. ASBOG included plagiarism as one of the 13 ethical issues in its Task Analysis surveys in 2010 and 2015, each of which was completed by a few thousand respondents—professional geoscientists and academics in the United States and Canada.5-7 The results of those surveys indicated that plagiarism is among the most frequent problem areas, and that it is considered a very serious problem.
Relevant provisions in geoethics codes
AAPG – § 4b; AEG – § 3.3; AGI – § 1.5; AGU – § V, VIC6; AIPG – § 4.1.1, 4.1.2; ASBOG – § 16-8a-b; CAL – § C6; GSA – § 3.1c, 3.2a.
Code Abbreviations
- AAPG — American Association of Petroleum Geologists, AAPG Code of Ethics (2024), Link to current document
- AEG — Association of Environmental and Engineering Geologists, AEG Code of Conduct (2018), Link to current document
- AGI — American Geosciences Institute, AGI Guidelines for Ethical Professional Conduct (2015), Link to current document
- AGU — American Geophysical Union, AGU Scientific Integrity and Professional Ethics (2023), Link to current document
- AIPG — American Institute of Professional Geologists, AIPG Code of Ethics (2019), Link to current document
- ASBOG — Association of State Boards of Geology, Model Rules and Regulations, Section 16, Code of Ethics (2019), Link to current document; see pages 27 to 29.
- Cal — Regulations Relating to the Practices of Geology and Geophysics, California Code of Regulations, Title 16, Division 29, Section 3065, Professional Standards and Code of Professional Conduct – Professional Geology and Professional Geophysics (2026), Link to current document; see pages 30 to 33.
- GSA — Geological Society of America, GSA Code of Ethics & Professional Conduct (2023), Link to current document
Notes and References
1 National Science and Technology Council, Executive Office of the President, 2000, Federal Policy on Research Misconduct: Federal Register 65, p. 76260–76264, accessed 20251018 via www.federalregister.gov/documents/2000/12/06/00-30852/executive-office-of-the-president-federal-policy-on-research-misconduct-preamble-for-research. The quoted definition is on page 76262.
2 NASEM, 2017, Fostering Integrity in Research: Washington, D.C., The National Academy Press, 310 p., https://doi.org/10.17226/21896, ISBN 978-0-309-39125-2, accessible via nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/21896/fostering-integrity-in-research. The quoted definition is on page 64.
3 Geological Society of America, 2023, GSA Code of Ethics & Professional Conduct, accessed October 26, 2026, via Link to current document; quote from page 6.4 Garner, B.A. [editor], 2024, Black's Law Dictionary [12th edition]: St. Paul, MN, Thompson Reuters, ISBN 979-8-350-29089-9, 2071 p.; quoted definition from page 1389.
5 Warner, J.L., and Warner, S.P., 2010, Task Analysis 2010 – A Study of the Practice of Geology in the United States and Canada: National Association of State Boards of Geology (ASBOG), 75 p., accessed October 24, 2026, via https://asbog.org/documents/ASBOG TAS 2010 - Final Report - June 2010.pdf
6 Warner, J.L. 2015, Task analysis survey 2015: A study of the practice of geology in the United States and Canada: National Association of State Boards of Geology (ASBOG), accessible via asbog.org/documents/ASBOG TAS 2015 - Summary Report (July 2021).pdf
7 Williams, J., 2018, The National Association of State Boards of Geology (ASBOG): Involvement in Geoscience Professional Ethics, in Gunderson, L.C., [editor], Scientific Integrity and Ethics in the Geosciences: Washington, D.C., American Geophysical Union, ISBN 978-1-119-06778-8, p. 77–99.