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I'm very new to being a peer reviewer. I agreed to anonymously review a paper for publication, and while reading it for the first time, I was a little annoyed by the writing style. It sort of reminded me of the feeling I get when reading a paper from a student in an undergraduate Liberal Arts Math course. When I began to read it again, I was very uneasy about the writing, especially in the introduction. There were inconsistencies in style. Some short, dry sentences followed by longer passages using flowery language. I looked at the references and noticed a few secondary sources. One was a NY Times article. I looked up the article online and in the first paragraph found a passage that was almost identical to one in the introduction section of the paper I'm supposed to review. I was shocked. And then I found more.

So far, all of the plagiarism that I've found is in the introduction. I haven't read the rest of the paper carefully yet because I'm fairly disgusted.

My question is this: should I even bother writing a review? If this were an undergraduate paper, the student would get an F on the assignment and get reported to the Dean. I want to write to the journal editor and just tell him that the paper doesn't deserve to be reviewed.

Has anyone seen this before, and what did you do? If you decided to review a paper like this, how would you phrase your feedback?

smci
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Concha Gomez
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    The paper fails a sniff check. Reject. – Tony Ennis Jun 21 '15 at 15:04
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    What is wrong with "Liberal Arts Math" ?? – Mindwin Remember Monica Jun 22 '15 at 14:52
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    @Mindwin, there's nothing wrong with Liberal Arts Math. Since I teach mathematics at the college level, I don't often grade papers. When I teach courses like Liberal Arts Math or History of Math, I grade lots of them. I've graded enough to to know that inconsistent writing style is often the result of plagiarism. – Concha Gomez Jun 23 '15 at 03:44
  • Is it at all possible that the NYT plagarized the paper? –  Jun 23 '15 at 14:32
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    @Freiheit That would be highly unlikely, seeing as the paper cited the NYT article, which would imply the NYT article was written first. – Compass Jun 23 '15 at 16:38
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    @Freiheit: In addition to what Compass said, this paper is being sent for review which means that it hasn't been published yet. So NYT cannot plagiarize from it. – FirstName LastName Jun 23 '15 at 21:22

7 Answers7

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I think you've pretty much done your review. You found a whole bunch of plagiarism up front, and that's enough to recommend rejection of the article. Document your findings and report to the editor. Even if the rest of the article turned out to be brilliant and original, there is no way it can be anything other than rejected and possibly even formal proceedings against the authors.

jakebeal
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  • 'Even if the rest of the article is brilliant and original' … unlikely, but really?? – chris Jun 21 '15 at 07:47
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    @chris: YES. A paper containing plagiarized passages should always be rejected. – aeismail Jun 21 '15 at 08:16
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    Why? Clearly if it is brilliant otherwise it should be revised not rejected. Refereeing is not primarily about morality or is it? – chris Jun 21 '15 at 08:19
  • Rejected papers are normally revised, occasionally based on the rejection comments, and then submitted again/elsewhere. The rejection in itself is a form of negative reinforcement. Publishing a paper with plagiarized text intact harms the reputations of both the journal and the authors. – HBSKan Jun 21 '15 at 08:40
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    @chris: Two reasons: 1) Plagiarism is such a severe misconduct that the strongest punishment is necessary to deterr it. If a student plagiarised only the introduction of an otherwise brilliant thesis, they should fail too. And rejection is the strongest punishment the reviewer can recommend (the journal might also initiate charges for copyright infringement or similar). 2) I would not trust any results by plagiarising authors, unless I have checked them myself, which is only possible in a proof-based field, in which case there is a considerable chance that the proofs are plagiarised as well. – Wrzlprmft Jun 21 '15 at 08:48
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    @Wrzlprmft as stated, the referee was supposedly able to decide that the rest of the paper was 'brilliant and original'. It seems to me the introduction then does not matter and could be re-written. On moral grounds, the author might need to be sanctioned, but that's another issue. Many morally sound but content-wise useless papers are published all the time…. – chris Jun 21 '15 at 08:54
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    @chris the main issue is that the plagiarism puts the entire article under question. If the authors start out with blatant plagiarism, this is a strong indication that the results might also be fabricated. It is often not feasible for the reviewer to repeat the work and test the results. For example, in a field like biology, that might be the work of a year and several million euros. Therefore, the only thing the reviewer can do is report the plagiarism and recommend rejection. – terdon Jun 21 '15 at 09:32
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    @terdon of course it does; but the premises of my comment was that somehow it had been established that the rest of the paper was brilliant and original. It is trivial to detect plagiarism nowadays. It is not trivial to identify brilliant papers. In my field introductions do not really matter as far as I am concerned. Plagiarism in the introduction is a very bad sign indeed but... – chris Jun 21 '15 at 10:43
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    The odds of the rest of the paper being brilliant and original are nearly nil. How could a researcher capable of brilliant and original work have sufficiently weak knowledge of the field such that even contemplation of gross plagiarism would be sensible? I suppose laziness is a potential explanation, but hardly casts the researcher in any better a light. No: document carefully, and reject unconditionally. Losing the chance to publish the work in the journal submitted to is an appropriate consequence. – hBy2Py Jun 21 '15 at 11:44
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    @chris I did not decide that the rest of the paper was "brilliant and original." I have not been able to bring myself to read that carefully beyond the introduction. – Concha Gomez Jun 21 '15 at 11:55
  • @chris: I read the premise with the implication that the reviewer judged the paper to be brilliant and original, because that is all you can ever do. You can never fully verify experimental results (as stated above) and you can never ensure that it hasn’t been done before (except maybe, if we are talking about things like a proof to Goldbach’s conjecture or similar). That you really know the work to be brilliant and original is a completely hypothetical situation and there is no use discussing it (while the premise as I assumed it is only very unlikely). – Wrzlprmft Jun 21 '15 at 15:21
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    @ConchaGomez: Nobody said that. This was just to illustrate how extreme the plagiarism weighs. – Wrzlprmft Jun 21 '15 at 15:22
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    @chris Given your apparently strong feelings on the matter, I would recommend you post a separate answer to the OP's question, rather than castigating those with whom you disagree in the comments. – hBy2Py Jun 21 '15 at 16:52
  • @Brian thanks for the advice. I thought about it but I only have strong feelings about a sentence in one of the answers. – chris Jun 21 '15 at 19:20
  • @chris, if I'm understanding your position correctly, I agree that the distinction you're trying to draw is significant -- I just disagree with your conclusion. I think the question would benefit from a more full exposition of your thoughts -- but, per the site guidelines, a better place for it is in an answer. – hBy2Py Jun 21 '15 at 19:48
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    @Brian: How could a researcher capable of brilliant and original work have sufficiently weak knowledge of the field such that even contemplation of gross plagiarism would be sensible? English not being his/her native language? Not that it justifies plagiarism, I'm just saying the two things are not necessarily incompatible, just as you can be very good at what you're doing technically but not be able to explain it properly. – nico Jun 22 '15 at 18:58
  • @chris: "Refereeing is not primarily about morality or is it?" - I don't think anyone stated this yet, the absolute objection to any form of plagiarism in academia isn't a matter of morality, it's a matter of the integrity of the academic process. No, refereeing is not primarily about morality, and someone who would immediately reject a paper for plagiarism would not necessarily reject a paper containing something they consider morally worse. Murdering a co-author is morally worse than leaving their name off, but per academic process you can accept the former paper but not the latter. – Steve Jessop Jun 23 '15 at 12:15
  • @SteveJessop This is a very well-put point, and I would agree with it. For example, if I was asked to review a paper with problematic human experiments (which I consider morally much worse than plagiarism), I would review it thoroughly and flag it as a concern to the editor. Plagiarism, on the other hand, simply disqualifies the paper from consideration. – jakebeal Jun 23 '15 at 12:22
  • @jakebeal: presumably there would be cases where someone reviews a paper and recommends changes for something that is or arguably is plagiarism as it stands. Maybe a citation that's accidentally omitted from a list, or spectacularly typoed to the point of failing to identify what's being quoted or who is being credited (entire line deleted or something). But evident intentional plagiarism just puts it beyond the pale, so it's a matter of where you draw the line that says, "I'm going to stop reading this, whatever there is of value in it will need to be submitted anew". – Steve Jessop Jun 23 '15 at 12:28
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I can't believe that some of the answers and comments here are even discussing the possibility that a paper with plagiarized introduction may still be publishable if only it was otherwise brilliant and original. It's not like we assign 50% of the grade during review for brilliance, 30% for writing style, and 20% for not plagiarizing. It doesn't work that way: if you dope in the long-jump event, you're not getting a 30cm penalty for every jump -- you're kicked out of the event (and, in fact, banned for the next couple of years).

Plagiarism is not an offense that has to be balanced with the rest of the evidence. It leads to immediate rejection of the paper. In fact, I would suggest that the proper path is not even to just suggest to the editor to reject the paper (which is the same penalty as for the regular poor paper) but indeed to use an "exceptional exit path" (too much programming with throw-catch languages :-) in which the paper is rejected simply for plagiarism or unprofessional conduct.

Wolfgang Bangerth
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    I personally would assign 90 % for brilliance, 10 % for writing style and if the work is original, would not care too much about the introduction. I would not compare the purpose of scientific publication to that of high jumping. As far as I know e.g. Gauss could have been morally unsound but he still wrote papers worth reading. I believe the editor rejects paper. We don't have to agree but I fail to see why this point of view is unbelievable. And I am worried I am going to regret writing this :-) – chris Jun 21 '15 at 19:03
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    @chris Yes, the editor rejects the paper. The referees make recommedations. Are you saying that the referees shouldn't recommend rejection because it's the editor's job to reject papers? That makes no sense to me. Do you also think that lawyers shouldn't argue that people before the court are innocent or guilty because it's the jury's job to decide that? – David Richerby Jun 22 '15 at 07:17
  • @DavidRicherby no I am not saying that. And I would not consider myself the analog of a lawer either! :-) – chris Jun 22 '15 at 07:29
  • @chris OK. So what consequences, if any, on the reviewers' behaviour are you trying to imply by "The editor rejects the paper"? – David Richerby Jun 22 '15 at 07:49
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    @DavidRicherby in contrast to what Pr Bangerth wrote, I would fully leave the issue of plagiarism to the editor to whom I would pass on the information. I personally would not be able to detect it unless maybe if the author copied my own wording. I would focus on making sure the paper is indeed brilliant, because that's what is important and difficult to do, hence worth my time. To be a bit provocative, I feel all introductions are bound to be similar in substance, and focussing on how they differ in form is not essential. May be that does not translate well across fields of research? – chris Jun 22 '15 at 08:20
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    @chris "all introductions are bound to be similar in substance" In any field, that can only be true if all papers are also bound to be similar in content. If there are many papers on the same narrow area of research, then that area is sufficiently well-known as not to need introducing beyond something like, "We study aspect X of metasyntactic widget theory, as discussed by [cite survey paper]." The rest of the introduction can then describe the work that is novel to the particular paper. – David Richerby Jun 22 '15 at 08:27
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    @DavidRicherby what you suggest sounds good to me; this is not how papers are written in my field. – chris Jun 22 '15 at 08:33
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    @chris, my answer here wasn't about whether the reviewer or the editor makes the decision. (The reality is that the editor makes the decision, taking into account the reviewers' opinions.) The answer was about the fact that there cannot be any gray zone where a paper that is sufficiently brilliant can offset a certain degree of plagiarism. We as scientists would be no better than those who "dope just a little bit". We'd be morally bankrupt if we are willing to accept even a little bit of plagiarism! – Wolfgang Bangerth Jun 22 '15 at 15:31
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    @chris If the paper starts off with clumsy lazy plagiarism, and follows with brilliance, wouldn't one tend to suspect that the brilliant part was quite possibly also plagiarized? – Dronz Jun 22 '15 at 21:42
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    @Dronz of course you would. I was arguing under the premises its has been established it was brilliant and original, however unlikely that might be. What i am trying to convey here is that taking the moral high ground is fine, but let us not forget that scientific publication is not about the appearance of being right morally, it is about substance. If, however unlikely it might be, a given paper is identified as truly brilliant and original, it should be published after correcting for the plagerized introduction. – chris Jun 22 '15 at 22:23
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    @chris: I cannot disagree more with this statement. You can only take this position in areas nobody cares about. If you are in climate science, for example, or any other area where there is public interest, any degree of moral ambiguity imperils the entire scientific enterprise. Let us not open this door even a wee bit. – Wolfgang Bangerth Jun 22 '15 at 22:51
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    @WolfgangBangerth this line of conduct seems to imply that one has lost track of what science is about and one is only concerned in its apparent credibility, which is my opinion is rather sad. I ll leave our disagreement there. – chris Jun 23 '15 at 07:12
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    Absolutely agreed. I actually heard of a case where students caught cheating on a (notoriously difficult) test were given a -10 penalty – which prompted a lot of “Really? If that’s the deal, I’m taking it; cheating could get me a lot more than 10% on that test.” (It turned out to be -10 on a test that was scored out of 20, which made it far less attractive as an option, but was still regarded as absurdly lenient. Not sure what ended up happening in that case.) – KRyan Jun 23 '15 at 15:57
  • @chris one has lost track of what science is about and one is only concerned in its apparent credibility — As opposed to what?!? In what way is science not about credibility? – JeffE Nov 10 '15 at 09:21
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    Science is about knowledge, truth, predictability, not about the moral standards of scientists. My impression is that people get very excited about the moral high ground these days, (on this site in particular!), which is ok I guess, but mostly beside the point. (and note that I too master bold face as means of emphasizing certain words :-)) – chris Nov 10 '15 at 12:45
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See the Council of Science Editors white paper on publication ethics at:

http://www.councilscienceeditors.org/resource-library/editorial-policies/white-paper-on-publication-ethics/

and the Committee on Publication Ethics flow charts at

http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts

Many journals follow these recommendations or similar ones in handling ethical issues.

As a reviewer, your job is to report this to the editor. The editor should take it from there.

I'm actually somewhat surprised that this paper even made it to the review stage- most publishers now routinely check all submitted papers for obvious plagiarism using tools that check against large databases of published papers and other material. Normally, this would have caught the kind of plagiarism you've described.

jakebeal
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Brian Borchers
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    Until the plagiarism is dealt with, there's really no reason for the reviewer to waste more time on the review. – Brian Borchers Jun 21 '15 at 17:37
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    Sad observation: if your editor follows these flowcharts, all plagiarizer have to do is keep silent. The "no response" paths do not always lead to retraction. – Raphael Jun 23 '15 at 14:26
  • If there's no response from the author then the editor won't publish the paper. The point is to give the author a chance to respond to the allegation. before a final rejection of the paper. – Brian Borchers Jun 23 '15 at 21:26
  • The PDF contains pages for already published articles. I was referring to page four, "What to do if you suspect plagiarism (b) Suspected plagiarism in a published manuscript". The "no response" path does not lead to ... anything. – Raphael Jun 24 '15 at 06:04
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I understand there is a moral and potentially punishable issue. However, as the reviewer appears to have understood, the writer is inexperienced.

What an author knows about plagiarizing practices depends largely on the country/university where s/he grew up in academic terms. In the Anglo-Saxon world I know this practice is severely punished already at undergraduate level, since from early stages of the studentship, students are required to participate more actively to the learning process and write papers for their classes, which allow them to learn about plagiarizing rules. In other countries this is not the case. The approach to the educational process is more passive in this sense, you are never required to write papers: if you do not write, you do not learn about it.

Another reason that might lead inexperienced authors to plagiarize (and write bad papers) is their bad level of English: you do not know how to formulate and write down your thinking in English language, you are more prone to copying text passages instead of rephrasing. I sense that this is the most probable reason for plagiarizing in this case. In fact, you have also noted (to my understanding) that although some sentences are copied, they are referenced to the original source; ergo, the author must have problems rephrasing the original sentences (quoting exists, but it is used for very specific passages, not for banal sentences).

Bear in mind, I am not justifying this practice, I am trying to explain that these behaviors may well exist even in absence of any true malicious intention. Therefore, each case should be very well pondered, before to decide how to act.

I would do the following:

  • warn the editor about plagiarizing passages in the paper
  • suggest a rejection of the paper
  • not recommend formal proceedings
  • explain that this behavior does not seem (at least at first sight) to be led by malicious intentions but rather by inexperience/bad English

I guess though that recommendations on formal proceedings are rather a subjective matter. I am sure many people won't agree with my do-gooding approach.

underdark
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Fuca26
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    I totally agree with you on your very last sentence " I am sure many people won't agree with my do-gooding approach." As I am sure that there will be more than one author to it and one of them would usually be a Professor (Last author), hence the first author might be inexperience but i find it had to believe that all the author were inexperienced. I assume that they didnt do their internal reviewing properly. – Saurabh Jun 21 '15 at 10:06
  • @Saurabh I have assumed that, since the reviewer did not mention the presence of a co-author, there is no co-author (in many fields this is the case, in many others it is not). If there is an experienced co-author, as you suggest, there should be a formal proceeding, I believe. – Fuca26 Jun 21 '15 at 10:25
  • @Saurabh But then, how can we check whether there is a co-author? if the review process is not double blinded, the reviewer should now the amount and identity of the papers authors. If it is double-blinded, then Google the title of the paper: there might be chances that there is at least one working-paper or conference version of that paper, so that you see the amount and identity of the authors. From some reviews that I have received on my paper, I suspect there are some people doing it. – Fuca26 Jun 21 '15 at 10:29
  • I would say to reject it and tell the editor that it's plagiarised if the review is double blind. Moreover I agree that having co authors might be field dependent but still everyone working in science should know that plagiarism is a crime. – Saurabh Jun 21 '15 at 10:33
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    +1 for recalling that there are severe and mild forms of plagiarism, each morally wrong but probably calling for different responses. one extreme is the intentional copying of someone else's findings and arguments, claiming them as one's own. note that this extreme kind of plagiarism does not at all entail the verbatim copying of a text passage -- it is even more effectively deceiving without. by contrast, very mild plagiarism would be a negligent rather than intentional copying of a short text passage with sloppy attribution … – henning Jun 21 '15 at 11:59
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    … the intellectual value of the impropriated content in each example differs by orders of magnitude. – henning Jun 21 '15 at 12:00
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    I asked this follow-up question as to whether plagiarism from inexperience is a real thing. – Wrzlprmft Jun 21 '15 at 21:01
  • I did not say that the author was inexperienced. I had no way of knowing that, or whether there was a coauthor. I said that the paper read like an undergraduate paper. A bad one. Also, some of the plagiarized passages had citations, some did not. I ran across a plagiarized passage by simply reading the first paragraph of the first reference. I then ran across several more. There are also several instances of statements that should have citations but did not. It is fraught with serious problems in the first three pages. I stopped there and wrote to the editor recommending outright rejection. – Concha Gomez Jun 23 '15 at 04:16
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    +1. The difference between "looking on Internet to find the translation of a single word" and "looking on Internet how one could translate a whole expression/idea from its own language into English" is not as neat as Native English speaker could believe. – Taladris Jun 23 '15 at 08:04
  • @ConchaGomez, I said "as the reviewer appears to have understood, the writer is inexperienced." And not "as the reviewer claims, the writer appears to be inexperienced." Sorry if I appeared to misrepresent your words, I apologize. – Fuca26 Jun 23 '15 at 08:24
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No, it should be rejected on spot as plagiarism should not be supported in any form and any level. If you found the a plagiarised passage is used in the beginning only then it is highly possible that the whole body of manuscript would be full of it and if you would go through and check the whole text then it will be a massive waste of time for you. Moreover if the author did not even know that plagiarism is a sin in science then he should not be in academia on the first place.

Hence my recommendation is rejection on spot as well as to communicate this to the editor as well so that appropriate action could be taken against the authors.

Saurabh
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    Hence my recommendation is rejection on spot as well as to communicate this to the editor as well so that appropriate action could be taken against the authors. — Besides rejecting the paper, what other "action" do you think might need to be taken against the authors? – Mad Jack Jun 21 '15 at 17:44
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    @MadJack: Well, the journal could take legal actions, as the authors claimed content to be their own which wasn’t. Then the journal will probably ban the authors. Finally the editors could inform the authors’ university and funders about the incident. – Wrzlprmft Jun 21 '15 at 20:45
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I think it is important here to differentiate between plagiarism and self-plagiarism. It is not an automatic rejection for self-plagiarism in the introduction. If an author has several papers coming out of one study, the introduction usually contains a description of that study that might contain a certain amount of self-plagiarism simply because the author has found a clear way to describe the context. This is generally okay even though it is technically a breach.

In the case you found, the plagiarism cannot possibly be self-plagiarism since the original is a news item etc. Such plagiarism is always a breach and, as others have said, should be reported to the editor and then let the editor decide whether you should complete the review.

JenB
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Journals have their policies against plagiarism, but it's the editor's duty (or the editorial board's) to enforce them. The reviewer has the duty to read the whole paper and assess its quality.

You should surely report the plagiarism to both the editor and the authors, but first you should complete your duty as reviewer. The editor will then make a decision on the basis of yours and others reviews, and on the journal policy.

If you think that you would not be able to complete the review in an unbiased way because of the introduction, ask the editor to find another reviewer.

Massimo Ortolano
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    "The reviewer has the duty to read the whole paper and assess its quality." [citation needed] I believe the reviewer's duty is to assess the quality of the paper. If one is going to state that the paper is good, one had better have read all of it. If one is going to state that the paper is bad, it is only necessary to read enough to determine that. In mathematics, for example, it's common to "stop at the first serious mistake" since, if that mistake cannot be fixed, it's likely to invalidate everything that follows. – David Richerby Jun 21 '15 at 11:01
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    @DavidRicherby: your example is not pertinent for the situation is completely different: a wrong theorem can surely invalidate all the consequences which are subsequently drawn from it, but a plagiarised introduction --though ethically unacceptable-- does not necessarily invalidate the scientific content of a paper. Moreover: firstly, that mistake can be fixed; secondly, if something is likely to invalidate what follows, you can't be sure unless you read it first. – Massimo Ortolano Jun 21 '15 at 11:29
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    a plagiarised introduction --though ethically unacceptable-- does not necessarily invalidate the scientific content of a paper — True, but irrelevant. The referee's job is to make a well-reasoned recommendation to the editor to accept or reject the paper. A paper with significant plagiarized content should not be published, regardless of its scientific validity. – JeffE Jun 21 '15 at 11:41
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    I disagree with this answer. Recall that the referee is donating her time as a service to the academic community. I don't see how the community benefits from a full evaluation of an unpublishable paper, certainly not in proportion to the value of the referee's time. I would regard this as a waste of time and I don't think the referee has a duty to waste her volunteered time. – Nate Eldredge Jun 21 '15 at 12:22
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    @NateEldredge and the others: I agree that the reviewer's time is precious and that plagiarism should be condemned etc., but I also think that one should avoid to be overly judgemental and feeling outraged without knowing the full story (see also Luca's answer). Therefore, I think that one should try nonetheless to be as a fair reviewer as possible, leaving to the editor the duty of sorting out whether the plagiarism was the consequence of fraudulent behaviour or inexperience, and to take proper action. – Massimo Ortolano Jun 21 '15 at 13:38
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    I've dealt with this situation as an editor. Once plagiarism was detected, we immediately asked all of the reviewers to stop working on their reviews until we could confirm the plagiarism and get a response from the authors. We stopped the review process entirely once the plagiarism was confirmed and the authors had no acceptable response. From my point of view as an editor, there's no point in your wasting time on a review of a manuscript that will be rejected. – Brian Borchers Jun 23 '15 at 03:33
  • @BrianBorchers- I appreciate your response. After reading all of the other responses, I was surprised to see that no one else had actually experienced this issue. I've already told the editor that the paper should be rejected without a review, and I'm glad to hear that other journals have dealt with this problem in the manner you've described. – Concha Gomez Jun 23 '15 at 04:01
  • I wrote to the editor today, describing the instances of plagiarism that I found so far (not only in the Introduction!), and told him that I stopped looking after running across plagiarized passages in each of the three references that I checked. I stated that the paper should be rejected without a review, and I added that if the editor disagreed then he should send it to a different reviewer because I was obviously biased. I'm surprised by the diversity of opinion here on Stack Exchange, but glad I came here. My situation appears to be somewhat unusual, which is a relief. – Concha Gomez Jun 23 '15 at 04:07