January 28, 2008

Author guidance on plagiarism and duplicate publication

Maxine Clarke

The Commentary in the current issue of Nature by Mounir Errami and Harold Garner, A tale of two citations (Nature 451, 397-399;2008), has predictably received a lot of attention. In a nutshell, the authors ask whether scientists are publishing more duplicate papers, and by their newly devised, automated search of seven million biomedical abstracts, provide the answer that yes, they are.

At the Nature Precedings forum on Nature Network, for example, Hilary Spencer wonders whether posting one’s paper on a preprint server, which has been suggested as one possible check/balance in the system, may rather "facilitate the very plagiarism that it can help to later detect. For many authors, this is a legitimate fear in today’s cut-and-paste climate. Is the risk (of facilitating plagiarism) worth the benefit (of facilitating detection)?" A systematic check by journals of their submitted papers against preprint servers for plaigiarism would be needed if Hilary's suggestion has any foundation (see this Nautilus post for details of an earlier scandal along these lines). Such a check, of course, would be another cost to the publisher of the journal before a research paper could be published.

At the Publishing in the New Millennium forum, also at Nature Network, there is an informed and passionate debate among the scientists in the group about whether more duplicate papers are being published in their fields; whether there are legitimate reasons to publish similar versions of the same paper in different journals; and if there is a problem, how it can be stemmed.

Martin Fenner writes about the issue on his blog, Gobbledygook, and from this post links to some other blog discussion arising from the Commentary. There is another post here, on Nascent (NPG's web publishing department blog) by Euan Adie, which refers to the plagiarism-detection software Cross Check.

In the middle of all the heated discussion, it is worth bearing in mind the policy advice that the Nature journals provide for authors and potential authors who would like guidance for how we, the editors, see this issue. So please see our author and reviewers' website for our polices on: plagiarism, fabrication and due credit for unpublished data; duplicate publication; authorship in general; and confidentiality/pre-publicity. We hope that these policies provide clear and helpful guidance. Authors and potential authors wishing more details can find links to relevant, free-access, journal editorials on each of these pages. Feedback and suggestions are welcome, either as comments to this post or via email.

No comments:

Random Posts


  • Understanding Publication Ethics

    Geraldine S. Pearson* >>> A recent survey of 524 editors of Wiley-Blackwell science journals (including nursing journals) asked about the severity and frequency of ethical issues, editor confidence in handling these, and awareness of COPE guidelines (Wager, Fiack, Graf, Robinson, &... READ MORE>>

  • Singapore Statement Urges Global Consensus on Research Integrity

    Scientists, scientific journals, and research institutions must adhere to an international set of ethical standards and consider the social implications of their work, says a new statement from 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity, co-sponsored by AAAS.The Singapore Statement on Research In... READ MORE>>

  • SINGAPORE STATEMENT on RESEARCH INTEGRITY

    BackgroundThe principles and responsibilities set out in the Singapore Statement on Research Integrity represent the first international effort to encourage the development of unified policies, guidelines and codes of conduct, with the long-range goal of fostering greater integrity in research world... READ MORE>>

  • More retractions from Nobelist - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences

    Two prominent journals have retracted papers by Nobel laureate Linda Buck today because she was "unable to reproduce [the] key findings" of experiments done by her former postdoctoral researcher Zhihua Zou, according to a statement made by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC), where Bu... READ MORE>>

  • A Reflection on Plagiarism, Patchwriting, and the Engineering Master's Thesis

    Edward J. Eckel, edward.eckel@wmich.edu How many times has a graduate student asked you questions such as the following: "How many words do I need to change so I'm not plagiarizing?" or "If my professor gives me his article or patent and tells me to go ahead and 'use it', do I need to cite it?... READ MORE>>

  • When is self-plagiarism ok? - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences

    When Robert Barbato of the E. Philip Saunders College of Business at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) heard he was being accused of plagiarizing his own work, he was a bit surprised. "I can't plagiarize myself -- those are my own words," he said. And he is not alone in his views. Some scienti... READ MORE>>

  • Chinese journal finds 31% of submissions plagiarized

    Yuehong Zhang Nature 467 , Page: 153  Date published: (09 September 2010) doi:10.1038/467153d Since October 2008, we have detected unoriginal material in a staggering 31% of papers submitted to the Journal of Zhejiang University–Science (692 of 2,233 submissions). The publication, designate... READ MORE>>

.

.
.

Popular Posts