Plagiarism, duplicate publication, and duplicate submission: They are all wrong! [Editorial]

The IEEE APS (Antennas and Propagation Society) Transactions and the Magazine recently expenenced at least one instance of apparent plagiarism, and several clear instances of duplicate publication and duplicate submission. Fortunately, such problems have been relatively rare. However, there has recently been a noticeable increase in the frequency of these problems. Such practices are morally and ethically wrong. They are against IEEE and APS policy. They can and have resulted in very serious consequences for the authors involved. In each of the recent cases, the offending authors made some attempt to claim ignorance of the policies, or that what they had done did not meet the definition of the offence. Indeed, in one case, it appeared that the authors honestly did not understand that what they had done was wrong. The following comments are an effort to ensure that the Magazine's policies regarding these offences are clearly understood.