public reviews and pointing out plagiarism

[zyzzx]

So, I find myself in a bit of a dilemma:
I have been asked to review a paper that draws heavily on a paper that I published last year, both in ideas and in language. My paper is referenced a lot, so they are not trying to hide this, but they have used far too much of my language (from the recent paper as well as an older paper of mine). This includes a few entire sentences, some exact phrases, a lot of pretty low-effort paraphrase (substituting one or two words, reversing the order of lists, that sort of thing), and just overall similarity (introduction goes through the same points, uses all the same references, etc). I am not happy with this, and I will make these issues clear to the editor privately - we have already communicated a bit about this and the potential for conflict of interest, and he wanted me to continue as a reviewer. The dilemma is that this journal has a public review process, so comments to the author will be posted for everybody to see. No matter how polite or non-direct I am, it feels like making public comments on the language similarity to my papers is an escalation. Part of me feels that it wouldn't be fair to the authors, but the rest of me feels that they deserve to be called out on this. It will be pretty obvious that it's me making these comments; I am not really concerned that the authors have any power over me or my career, but again, it will be public. If I do include it in the public review, I would write it to give them the benefit of the doubt (i.e. like they didn't know that exact sentences need quotation marks, and that sort of thing), and not go shouting plagiarism, but the implication is still there. These are authors that have published a lot and should definitely know better.

So, thoughts? What would you all do - keep it private, make it public, or just leave little hints in the public review, but not say anything outright?

[Parasaurolophus]

What about simply saying something like: "The paraphrasing throughout is inadequate" or just "inadequate paraphrasing"?

[zyzzx]

What about simply saying something like: "The paraphrasing throughout is inadequate" or just "inadequate paraphrasing"?

Hmmm, yes, this could be a strategy for the third option (hinting, but not saying outright).

[RatGuy]

You say that these authors have published a lot -- my guess is that they've done this before. It can be hard to break sloppy writers of their sloppy writing habits, especially when people feel uncomfortable point out the sloppiness.

I'd choose option three, but I'd make do more than "little hints." It's possible, as pointed out above, to indicate that the language isn't original without using the term "plagiarized." It's easier to point out of the authors cite your work in a section, then don't really paraphrase your language. If those sentences aren't part of a section that explicitly draws from your work (or otherwise doesn't cite it), then I'd include specific link. So, in addition to the "inadequate paraphrase," I'd add "see Zyzzx, Title, 2019."

[polly_mer]

It's less insulting to point out factual passages with comparison than to state that the authors don't know that direct quotations need the quotation marks.

Flat out stating that the introduction follows too closely and the paraphrasing follows too closely seems reasonable.