Yes, It’s Plagiarism, But It’s Complicated

Saidman et al.1 describe 2 instances of ostensible plagiarism in serial editions of medical textbooks and also mention a third case. In all 3 cases, chapters in newly revised versions of these textbooks were found to contain over 80% of material from their corresponding versions written by other authors and published in their earlier editions. In the 2 cases described, a footnote was included acknowledging the contributions of the original...