On the Concept of Originality in Scientific Studies

Abstract

The issue of what originality means and how it should be addressed in scientific studies has been a controversial and much disputed subject. It is very difficult to come up with a clear and common definition and conceptualization of originality and to discuss such an intangible subject in the context of all scientific fields. In order for researchers and academics to engage in sustainable R&D activities, originality must be well understood and measurably reflected. This study aims to reveal how the concept of originality has been addressed conceptually in the literature. The keywords related to the subject were filtered with Boolean operators and queried in the academic databases of “Web of Science, Scopus, ScienceDirect, Google Akademik, Microsoft Academic, TR Index” and academic social networks of “Researchgate, Quora, Edigate Insights”. The results show that due to the variation in the topics, approaches and methodologies within different disciplines, the concept of scientific originality differs from one discipline to another. It is very important to understand the difference between the concepts of creativity, novelty and uniqueness, which are closely related to originality. As such, this study offers clues on originality for researchers.