A group of authors from Saudi Arabia and Egypt has lost their 2012 paper in the International Journal of Dentistry for what appears to be a case of large-scale lifting of text from a previously published paper.
The now-retracted article was titled “A Prospective Study of Early Loaded Single Implant-Retained Mandibular Overdentures: Preliminary One-Year Results,” and has yet to be cited, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
From the abstract:
Clinical assessments, radiographs made with custom film holders, and stability measurements by both manual and resonance frequency analysis methods were recorded. All complications, failures, maintenance, and reasons for failure to follow-up were noted. …
These preliminary 1-year results indicate that early loading of a single chemically modified surface implant used to retain a mucosa-borne mandibular overdenture is a safe, reliable, and cost-effective treatment.
The authors of the retracted paper do cite the article from which they plagiarized. But they evidently liked it a bit too much. Here’s part of the abstract from the earlier work:
Clinical assessments, radiographs made with custom film holders, and stability measurements by both manual and resonance frequency analysis methods were recorded. All complications, failures, maintenance, and reasons for failure to follow-up were noted. …
These preliminary 1-year results indicate that immediate loading of a single oxidized surface implant used to retain a mucosa-borne overdenture is a safe, reliable, and cost-effective treatment.
The end result:
The paper titled “A Prospective Study of Early Loaded Single Implant-Retained Mandibular Overdentures: Preliminary One-Year Results” [1], published in International Journal of Dentistry, has been retracted as it is found to contain a substantial amount of material from the paper “A prospective study of immediately loaded single implant-retained mandibular overdentures: preliminary one-year results,” Liddelow G. J., Henry P. J., Journal of Prosthetic Dentistry, vol. 97, no. 6, pp. S126–S137, 2007.
I absolutely love the size of the Hindawi mark. Somehow, other blog entires should also carry the name of the publisher in large bold way, such as Elsevier, Springer, Informa, Taylor and Francis, etc. every time a paper is retacted from one of their journals. That Hindawi mark leaves a visual imprint in our minds and a slightly negative image of the publisher (because it indicates that quality control was not done properly during the peer review). Therefore, if we were to see the Hindawi mark posted 10 times, I would hesiate to ever submit to a Hindawi journal (including for the fact that it is Egyptian owned and managed). So, if the same principle were applied to Elsevier, or the other publishers listed, would we start to have a visual association in our minds with a publisher? It’s worth the experiment…
“plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery” At least seems to be in certain regions of the world. I got a manuscript for review last year, that at first seemed very familiar… turns out, using certain software, I and the journal editor observed that 34% of the manuscript directly plagiarized one of mine published a few years previously. The data tables even had the same format, just slightly different numbers and of course a different microorganism. Needless to say the manuscript got soundly rejected with a cautionary letter. But then it did appear later in a 4th rate journal!