A former lecturer in the modern languages department of the University of St Andrews in Scotland committed plagiarism in seven papers published between 2014 and 2022, according to the results of an institutional investigation.
The university posted a statement on its website about the outcome of the investigation that did not name the researcher, who Retraction Watch has learned is Ros Holmes.
Holmes has two retractions in our database, both for plagiarism.
The first retraction, from May of last year, was for “Bad Citizens and Symbolic Subjects: Wang Jin, Zhou Tiehai, and the Art of (In)civility,” originally published in 2019 in the British Journal of Chinese Studies. The journal removed the article from its website, but updated the introduction to the issue with a retraction notice that stated:
We have been alerted to the fact that this article uses phrases and ideas taken verbatim from a number of other scholars’ works without being properly cited. In many cases, the scholarship was also not included in the bibliography.
The notice also included nine references as the “most significant” sources Holmes had plagiarized.
Holmes’ other retraction to date came last October. “Meanwhile in China … Miao Ying and the Rise of Chinternet Ugly,” was published in 2018 in the journal ARTMargins. The retraction notice stated:
A reader conveyed concerns regarding the originality of parts of the author’s article in May 2022. The journal independently investigated the charges and verified them. Following Dr. Holmes’s admission of plagiarism in all the instances identified by the ARTMargins investigation, the journal informed the journals and authors whose work was left un-cited, as well as the Ethics Committee at the author’s university.
The notice said Holmes agreed to the retraction, and listed 24 sources she “failed to cite,” including Wikipedia.
The University of St Andrews’ online statement said it had begun the investigation after academic publishers “and other parties” raised concerns about the lecturer’s work in May and June of last year. The university said:
The investigation found incontrovertible evidence that the individual had used the texts and conclusions of other scholars and journalists in their published works without appropriate attribution, and that this amounted to plagiarism and research misconduct.
Over 70 instances of plagiarism, from a wide range of sources, were established across seven pieces of work published between 2014 and 2022.
The individual is no longer employed by the University of St Andrews.
The University is informing all relevant publishers and previous employers of the findings of the research integrity investigation and is grateful for the cooperation and support on which it has been able to rely throughout the investigatory process.
We were forwarded an email from a university official that named Holmes as the lecturer referred to in the statement.
A cached version of Holmes’ profile page at St Andrews indicates she joined the university in 2020 and was a lecturer in Chinese studies.
An email to Holmes’ school email address was not returned as undeliverable, but we have not yet received a reply.
In response to our request for comment, a university spokesperson said:
We have published a statement on this matter on our website in which we have agreed not to name the individual out of concern for an ongoing health issue. All relevant publishers and previous employers are being informed, in keeping with our unwavering commitment to research integrity. University colleagues have also been made aware. We do not intend to comment further on this matter at this time.
Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, add us to your RSS reader, or subscribe to our daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in our database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at [email protected].
I wonder if those papers would still have been publishable if all those sources had been properly acknowledged.
Dr. Holmes was clearly absent from graduate workshops about what is and isn’t plagiarism. It’s shocking that such a thing could be done by someone who is clearly beyond the postdoctoral level.
Doesn’t the doctoral thesis itself become suspect?
No, what’s shocking is that that a person commits plagiarism to such an extent (over 70 instances) over a period of eight years (2014-2022) and yet it was never detected until now (2023).
Says a lot about the editorial system used to review these papers. None of it good. But here we are and there we go.
I don’t know about that. Expecting reviewers to detect that parts of a text under review were copied from other published texts, based on what, pure memory(?), is a pretty high bar.
I understand there are software packages that are designed to detect plagiarized text. This seems like something the journal editors ought to be responsible for.