Manuel B. Garcia

Manuel B. Garcia serves as the Senior Director for Educational Technology and Digital Learning at FEU Institute of Technology, Manila, Philippines. Read More

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Part 05 · Guide 470 of 530

Can You Plagiarize a Figure, Table, Framework, or Conceptual Model?

Plagiarism is not limited to prose. Figures, tables, frameworks, and conceptual models can embody another researcher's ideas, results, organization, or expression and may require attribution, permission, or both.

By Manuel B. Garcia
470
Plagiarism of Figures and Models Guide 470 of 530
01 · The Question

Does Plagiarism Apply to Visual and Conceptual Research Materials?

You find a figure that explains a theory perfectly, a table that organizes evidence elegantly, or a conceptual model that fits your study. Instead of copying the image directly, you redraw it using your own colors and layout. Is it now yours?

Not necessarily. Plagiarism is not confined to sentences. A figure, table, framework, or conceptual model can embody another person's ideas, results, structure, or creative expression. Changing its appearance may alter the presentation without changing its intellectual provenance.

02 · The Short Answer

Redrawing Something Does Not Automatically Make It Original

In Brief

Yes. A figure, table, framework, or conceptual model can raise plagiarism concerns when you appropriate another person's identifiable ideas, results, organization, or expression without appropriate credit, even if you redraw, reformat, or restyle it.

Attribution and copyright permission are separate questions. Citing the original source may address scholarly attribution, but reproducing or adapting protected material may also require permission or another legal basis depending on the work, license, jurisdiction, publisher agreement, and intended use.

03 · What You Need to Know

A Visual Can Carry Intellectual Content Just as Prose Does

Plagiarism is broader than copying words

The U.S. Office of Research Integrity defines plagiarism within its research-misconduct framework as appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results, or words without appropriate credit. ORI's educational material likewise describes plagiarism more broadly than textual copying and discusses appropriation of ideas, methods, images, processes, structures, and design elements. A research contribution therefore does not become attribution-free merely because it appears visually rather than as prose.

A figure may communicate research results. A conceptual model may embody a theoretical argument. A framework may organize concepts in a distinctive relationship. A table may contain another researcher's data, synthesis, categorization, or intellectual organization. What requires attribution depends on what you are actually taking.

Exact reproduction is the clearest case

If you place another author's figure or table into your manuscript substantially as it appeared in the source, readers should not be left to believe that you created it. Appropriate attribution is necessary.

However, attribution does not answer every question. An exact reproduction may also involve copyright or licensing conditions. The U.S. Copyright Office explains that copyright protects original expression, while ideas, procedures, processes, systems, methods of operation, concepts, principles, and discoveries are not protected merely as such. The distinction between an underlying idea and its particular expression is therefore important.

Redrawing a figure does not erase its intellectual origin

Researchers sometimes assume that recreating a diagram in PowerPoint, changing the colors, replacing circles with rectangles, or moving arrows around produces an original figure. Visually, it may be a new file. Intellectually, it may still be an adaptation of someone else's work.

If the relationships, organization, categories, or conceptual structure came from an identifiable source, that provenance should not disappear merely because you reconstructed the artwork yourself. This follows the same principle that allows an idea to be plagiarized without copying its wording.

Reproduced The original figure, table, or other material is copied substantially as it appeared in the source.
Adapted The source material has been modified, reorganized, redrawn, translated, shortened, expanded, or otherwise changed while remaining recognizably derived from it.

Adaptation still requires intellectual attribution

Suppose you take a published conceptual model containing six constructs and their proposed relationships. You remove one construct, add another, and redraw the model in a different visual style. Your modifications may represent a genuine contribution, but the underlying model did not originate entirely with you.

A transparent presentation can distinguish the original contribution from your adaptation. Depending on disciplinary and publisher conventions, wording such as "adapted from" may be appropriate, together with a citation to the source. The exact attribution format should follow the relevant citation style and publication requirements.

Creating a new figure from someone else's data still requires citation

There is another variation. Instead of copying a published chart, you take numerical results from another study and create an entirely new visualization. The graphical expression may be yours, but the underlying results are not.

ORI's definition explicitly includes another person's results among the contributions that can be appropriated without appropriate credit. A newly designed graph therefore does not remove the obligation to identify the source of the data or results on which it is based.

Tables can contain different kinds of borrowed material

A table deserves more careful analysis than simply asking whether its borders and fonts match the source. Its cells may contain published numerical results, quotations, classifications, synthesized findings, or factual information assembled by another author.

If you reproduce a table, attribution is straightforwardly relevant. If you build a new table from several sources, cite those sources in a way that allows readers to identify where the information came from. If you independently compile public facts, the attribution question may differ again.

Copyright can also treat factual information differently from an author's particular selection or arrangement. Under U.S. regulations, ideas, methods, systems, and information that is common property are not protected merely as such, while original expression may be protected. Copyright treatment can differ internationally, so researchers should not assume that one jurisdiction's rules apply universally.

Frameworks and conceptual models are primarily intellectual contributions

A conceptual framework may consist of familiar concepts, yet the researcher's contribution may lie in selecting those concepts, defining particular relationships among them, or proposing a new explanatory structure.

Recreating that framework in your own visual style therefore does not necessarily make the conceptual contribution yours. If your model was materially derived from another researcher's framework, identify that intellectual lineage. If you substantially modify it, distinguish what you inherited from what you added.

This is closely related to using another researcher's methodological contribution: reuse itself may be legitimate, but provenance should not be misrepresented.

Citation and copyright permission solve different problems

Citation Addresses scholarly attribution by identifying the source of the material or intellectual contribution.
Permission or another legal basis Addresses whether copyright-protected material may legally be reproduced or adapted in the intended circumstances.

A citation is not a copyright license. Conversely, receiving permission to reproduce a figure does not mean you should omit attribution and present it as your creation.

The U.S. Copyright Office explains that fair use can permit some unlicensed uses for purposes including scholarship and research, but it is a case-specific analysis based on statutory factors. It expressly cautions that there is no predetermined percentage or amount that is automatically safe. Other countries have different copyright exceptions.

Watch Out

Do not assume that "for academic purposes" automatically means you may reproduce any copyrighted figure or table. Research and scholarship can be relevant to copyright exceptions, but they do not create an unlimited exemption from copyright law or publisher licensing conditions.

The source may not own the copyright you need

Publication can complicate matters further. Depending on the publication agreement, the author may have retained copyright, transferred certain rights to a publisher, or published the material under a license such as a Creative Commons license.

Before reproducing or adapting a published figure or table, check the actual rights information attached to the work rather than assuming that the person you are citing necessarily controls all reuse rights.

When the material came from your own earlier publication, the attribution question changes again, but copyright may remain relevant. The separate issue of reusing your own previously published figure or table requires checking both prior-publication transparency and reuse rights.

04 · A Practical Example

What Happens When You Redraw Someone Else's Conceptual Model?

Hypothetical Example

A published framework becomes the basis of a new model

A researcher finds a published conceptual model linking perceived usefulness, institutional support, confidence, and technology adoption. The researcher wants to use the model in a new study.

Direct reproduction The researcher inserts the original figure into the manuscript. The original source should be clearly attributed, and the researcher should determine whether the intended reproduction is permitted under the applicable license, publisher terms, copyright exception, or permission.
Visual redrawing The researcher recreates exactly the same constructs and relationships but changes the colors, shapes, and typography. The new artwork does not erase the model's intellectual provenance. Attribution is still required.
Conceptual adaptation The researcher removes one relationship, adds two constructs derived from other literature, and proposes new paths. The revised model may contain original contributions, but it remains partly derived from the earlier model and should be presented accordingly.
Independent development The researcher independently develops a model from a different theoretical synthesis and later discovers that it resembles the published model. Similarity alone does not establish plagiarism, although the prior model should be engaged with appropriately once it becomes relevant to the scholarship.

The question is not who clicked "Insert Shape." It is where the intellectual structure came from and whether any protected expression has also been reproduced.

05 · What Researchers Often Get Wrong

Common Mistakes When Reusing Figures, Tables, and Models

Misconception

If I Redraw It Myself, I Don't Need to Cite It

Redrawing changes the physical or digital rendering, not necessarily the intellectual origin. If the structure, relationships, data, or model came from another source, attribution may still be required.

Misconception

If I Cite the Figure, I Automatically Have Permission to Reproduce It

No. Citation and copyright authorization are different. A properly cited reproduction can still raise a copyright issue if permission, licensing terms, or an applicable exception do not authorize the use.

Misconception

Changing the Colors Makes a Figure an Adaptation I Can Claim as Mine

Cosmetic changes generally say little about intellectual originality. An adaptation should acknowledge the material from which it was derived, and substantial similarity in protected expression may also require copyright analysis.

Misconception

Tables Are Just Facts, So They Never Need Attribution

A table can contain another researcher's data, results, categories, synthesis, or original arrangement. Determine what has actually been borrowed rather than treating every table as an attribution-free collection of facts.

Misconception

Academic Use Is Automatically Fair Use

Under U.S. law, scholarship and research are purposes that may favor fair use, but fair use requires a contextual assessment of multiple statutory factors. It is not an automatic exemption, and other jurisdictions apply different rules.

06 · What This Means for You

Ask Two Questions: Whose Contribution Is It, and May You Reuse It?

When incorporating visual or conceptual material, conduct the attribution analysis and the reuse-rights analysis separately. Combining them into a single question is how researchers end up believing that a citation functions as a permission slip.

A simple decision framework

If you reproduce another source's figure or table
Attribute the source and verify the applicable license, publisher terms, permission requirements, or copyright exception.
If you redraw or adapt another source's figure, framework, or model
Identify the original source and make the adaptation transparent; separately determine whether the intended adaptation is legally permitted.
If you create a new visualization from another source's data or results
Cite the source of the underlying data or results even though you created the visualization yourself.
If you independently create a genuinely original framework
Explain its theoretical basis and cite the scholarship from which its constituent concepts or relationships are derived where appropriate.
If the rights status is unclear
Check the original publication, license, rights statement, and publisher requirements rather than assuming citation alone is sufficient.
07 · A Quick Checklist

Check a Figure, Table, Framework, or Model Before Reusing It

Before including borrowed or adapted material, check:
Did I create the intellectual content myself, or did its data, relationships, categories, structure, or model come from another source?
Have I cited the original source rather than implying that redrawing or reformatting made the contribution mine?
Have I clearly distinguished a reproduction from an adaptation?
If I created a new graph from published data, have I identified the source of those data or results?
Have I checked the copyright or licensing information associated with the original material?
If permission is required, have I obtained it from the appropriate rights holder rather than assuming the cited author controls the rights?
If I am relying on a copyright exception, have I checked the law applicable to my intended use and jurisdiction?
Can a reader distinguish clearly between the source's contribution and my own modifications?
08 · Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently Asked Questions About Visual and Conceptual Plagiarism

Is copying a figure plagiarism if I cite it?

A clear citation addresses the attribution issue, but exact reproduction may still raise copyright or licensing questions. Check both scholarly attribution requirements and the legal or contractual conditions governing reuse.

Do I need to cite a figure if I redraw it completely?

If the underlying figure, conceptual relationships, results, or organization came from another source, redrawing it does not normally eliminate the need to acknowledge that source.

What is the difference between reproducing and adapting a figure?

Reproduction generally retains the original material substantially as it appeared, while adaptation changes it in some meaningful way. Both can require attribution, and either may also require consideration of copyright, licensing, or permission.

Can I make a new graph using data from someone else's paper?

Potentially, but creating the graph yourself does not make the underlying data or results yours. Cite their source and check whether any additional data-use, licensing, or other restrictions apply.

Can a conceptual framework be plagiarized?

Yes, when an identifiable conceptual contribution is appropriated without appropriate credit. Replacing the visual design while preserving another researcher's conceptual structure does not necessarily make the framework original.

Does citation mean I do not need copyright permission?

No. Citation concerns attribution. Copyright permission concerns legal authorization to use protected material. Depending on the work and circumstances, you may need attribution, permission, both, or attribution together with reliance on an applicable license or copyright exception.

Is there a percentage of a figure I can copy without permission?

There is no universal percentage rule. For example, the U.S. Copyright Office explicitly states that fair use has no predetermined number of words, pages, or percentage that is automatically permissible. Other jurisdictions have their own copyright rules.

09 · The Bottom Line

Changing the Appearance Does Not Erase the Source

The Bottom Line

A figure, table, framework, or conceptual model can raise plagiarism concerns when another person's intellectual contribution is appropriated without appropriate credit, even if you redraw or reformat the material.

Keep attribution and permission separate. Identify whose intellectual work you are using, make adaptations transparent, and then determine whether copyright, licensing, publisher policy, or another legal rule also governs the reuse.

10 · Sources and Further Reading

Authoritative Sources on Attribution and Reuse

11 · Cite this Guide

How to Cite This Guide

This guide is intended to be read, shared, and used in research, teaching, and academic work. If you draw on its ideas, explanations, or other content, please acknowledge the source by citing the guide. Doing so gives appropriate credit and helps your readers locate the original resource.

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