Citetiquette

This collection of guidelines describes how to handle the intellectual property of others. It provides an overview of the most important, basic principles of avoiding plagiarism and the use of artificial intelligence tools. The authorship of scholarly and scientific texts, as well as software code, requires that the thought processes, methods, and theories of one author may be deployed by another author only if they are clearly designated as borrowed intellectual property. This also includes the use of technical tools to gather or generate such information. Please note that other disciplines (i.e. medicine, law, ...) might apply guidelines and handle plagiarism differently, but basic principles remain the same. Ask your supervisor about specific citing rules if you are unsure. In addition to this citation etiquette, it is important that you also respect additional aspects of scientific and scholarly integrity described elsewhere, such as FAIR data management [1], truthful and reproducible documentation of methods, and acknowledgement of facilitators. It is expected that your scholarly work is accompanied by a signed declaration of originality (see download section). We recommend using the citetiquette checklist in the download section to verify your work before signing the declaration of originality and/or submitting your work for evaluation or publication.

Transparency is key when it comes to borrowing intellectual property in your work. While it's acceptable to quote short passages from other works, it's crucial that the quote is easily identifiable and its source is cited. Adopting entire paragraphs or more without your own contribution is not good practice for an academic scholar.

1. Source citation: Cite all your sources thoroughly and verifiably so anyone can check them. Follow the scientific citation rules usual for your discipline, including the special rules for citing electronic sources.
2. Your work: Differentiate clearly between your new work, your previous work, and that of others. Always name the author(s) of work that is not your own. This applies to ideas, texts, computer code, tables, graphics, and data, even from the Internet. Identify images and graphics from other sources and acquire permission or licences where needed.
3. Word-for-word quotes: Place borrowed text (sentences and concepts) in quotation marks and cite its source.
4. Paraphrases (analogous quotes): If you have rendered ideas or text in your own words or summarised it, also cite its source.
5. Secondary sources: Identify a citation as a secondary source if you have taken it from another author without being able to check the original source yourself. This might happen, for example, if the original work is written in an unfamiliar language to you.
6. General knowledge: Anything that may be regarded as general or basic knowledge does not require a source citation. However, the source must be cited if the basic ideas are taken from another author, e.g., from a textbook.
7. Bibliography: At the end of your manuscript, list all the sources and ‘intellectual mentors’ you have used.
8. Acknowledgements: Declare which help you received and who facilitated the drafting of the work, i.e., copyediting
9. Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools: Declare whether you used AI tools and/or technology to prepare your work. For this, specify which ones, for which purpose, and to what extent.

Plagiarism is understood as the complete or partial imitation of the work of another author or yourself without adequately acknowledging that work’s source and author. It does not matter whether it was intentional or not. It must always be apparent to the reader which parts are your own independent work and where you have drawn on someone else’s ideas and intellectual property.

You may not:

1. Use the exact words of or ideas from another author’s intellectual property (text, ideas, images, structures, software code, etc.) without citing the source clearly.
2. Paraphrasing without providing the source and/or paraphrasing by altering or reordering single words.
3. Use text from the internet without citing the URL and the date you accessed it.
4. Reuse your own written texts or parts of them in different scholarly works without explicitly identifying them as such.
5. Translate and use a foreign-language text without citing its source.
6. Submit work under your own name that has been written for you by someone else (e.g., a ‘ghostwriter’) or generative models (e.g., AI) without explicit declaration.
7. Use an extract from another author’s work, paraphrase it, and cite the source somewhere other than in the context of that extract (for example, the (in practice, plagiarised) source is hidden in a footnote at the end of a manuscript).

In the context of student work and exams, apparent plagiarism will result in a grade of 5, indicating the module's failure.
In the context of scientific work, plagiarism will be prosecuted according to the guidelines of the University of Ulm [2] and the “Kodex of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)” [3].