Problems with anti-plagiarism database

Mauno Vihinen

NATURE|Vol 457|1 January 2009

SIR — Sophisticated tools have been developed to detect duplicate publication and plagiarism, as noted in M. Errani and H. Garner’s Commentary ‘A tale of two citations’ (Nature 451, 397–399; 2008) and in your News story ‘Entire-paper plagiarism caught by software’ (Nature 455, 715;2008). >>>

Entire-paper plagiarism caught by software - NATURE

Thousands of 'similarities' found between papers.

Declan Butler
Nature 455, 715 (2008)

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Many of the duplicates in Deja Vu come from non-English-speaking countries, and some scientists have asserted that a degree of plagiarism is justified as a way of improving the English of their texts (see Nature 449, 658; 2007). "There definitely is a cultural component," says Garner, "but this appears to be an equal-opportunity behaviour, with scientists from across the world involved."

When confronted with their plagiarism, some researchers can be brazen. One offender, whose paper shared 99% of its text with an earlier report, wrote to Garner: "I seize the opportunity to congratulate [the authors of the original paper] for their previous and fundamental paper — in fact that article inspired our work."

Ethics in science: Are we losing the moral high ground?

Faisal M Sanai
Associate Editor,
Saudi J Gastroenterol 2008;14:107-8


In the competitive world of academia, a person's worth is often ostensibly gauged by one's scientific contribution, wherein the 'article count' has become the simplistic measure of this contribution. The number and frequency of publications reflect an academic's stature in the scientific community and hence the race to publish and increase this 'article count' has become an end unto itself. Sadly though, the overriding desire to publish sometimes defeats the very purpose of scientific contribution as, not unsurprisingly, even the learned may cheat.>>>