Discussing plagiarism in Latin American science: Brazilian researchers begin to address an ethical issue

Most developed countries have extensive guidelines about research integrity, which reflects a global attempt to harmonize policies for handling research misconduct. For the editors and readers of English-language international journals, the question of plagiarism is of particular concern. This study looks at the perception of plagiarism among Brazilian scientists. Results suggest that the concept of plagiarism itself is not clear: although participants unanimously regarded the use of the ideas and data of other researchers as wrong, they had mixed opinions about using passages of text. We also found that plagiarism is a sensitive issue, which is not yet appropriately addressed by formal institutional guidelines in all Latin American countries.